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Classroom Activities: Differences and Likenesses
  


Focusing on Self-Concept and Understanding Individual Differences and Likenesses

Lesson 3.1: Differences and Likenesses

Books
Being with You This Way by W. Nikola-Lisa
All the Colors of the Earth by S. Hamanaka
Other suggested books about differences and likenesses
Purposes
To encourage children to appreciate ways in which we are all alike.
To encourage children to appreciate ways in which we are all different.
To encourage children to appreciate how they can be a part of a number of different groups.
Appropriate Age Group
Primary
Thematic Unit Connections
Me; Self-Concept; Friendship; Appreciating Similarities and Differences
Curriculum Connections
Language Arts; Social Studies; Mathematics

Objectives

  1. The students will listen to/read a story about how we are all the same and yet we are all different.
  2. The students will share information about themselves.
  3. The students will graph everyone in the class according to their different attributes, likes, dislikes, and so on.
  4. The students will do various kinds of math problems with their class graphs.
  5. The students will write and illustrate a page about their favorite thing to contribute to a class book.
  6. The students will write a poem that describes themselves.
  7. The students will revise, edit, and publish the poems.
Materials
Being with You This Way by W. Nikola-Lisa
All the Colors of the Earth by S. Hamanaka
Materials to do graphing activities
Materials to make a book
Materials for writing poetry
Materials for publishing students' poetry
Other suggested books about differences and likenesses

Introducing Selection

Activating Prior Knowledge
Ask students to name different ways in which they can be grouped according to their characteristics (e.g., hair color, eye color, height).

Setting Purpose for Reading Selection

  1. Introduce Being with You This Way by W. Nikola-Lisa.
  2. Ask students to look for ways in which the children in this story could be grouped according to their characteristics (e.g., hair color, eye color, height).
Reading and Responding
Read Selection
  • Have students read/listen to Being with You This Way. Students can snap their fingers and/or clap their hands every time that you read "Uh-huh," "Mm-mmm," or "Ah-hah."
Respond to Selection
  • Discuss ways in which the children in the book were grouped.
  • Discuss other ways in which children can be grouped (e.g., by how many siblings they have, how many pets they have, what they like to eat, what they like to play, what their favorite subject in school is, or how they get to school).

Extending the Literature

Activity 1

  1. Show students how they belong to different groups by graphing their attributes, family characteristics, and so on. (Possible graph topics include color of hair, color of eyes, number of sisters, number of brothers, way in which they get to school, their favorite game played with a ball, their favorite book.)
  2. For a math lesson, ask some of the following questions: How many in each category? Which category has more? Which category has less? Which two categories add up to ten? How many more in the first category than the second category? Which category has none? (Make sure the students understand that more does not mean better.)

Activity 2
Students can make a page for a class book by finishing the following phrase "My favorite thing is _______." Ask the students to illustrate their page. The pages can be put together into a class book.

Activity 3
Read Sheila Hamanaka's book All the Colors of the World aloud to the students or have the students cooperatively read the book in groups of two.

Ask the students to use the writing process to write a poem.

  1. Rehearsing stage: Discuss the descriptive words Hamanaka used to talk about the children in her book. Brainstorm other words that could be used to describe children.
  2. Drafting stage: Ask students to write a first draft. The students should not be worried about spelling, and so on in the first draft. The emphasis should be on creativity.
Kindergartners and first graders can write a poem about themselves using similes. For example:
My eyes are like _____________.
My hair is like ______________.
My skin is like ______________.
And I am like _______________.
Second and third graders can write a cinquian poem (a five-line descriptive poem):
Line 1. A word for the subject
Line 2. Four syllables describing the subject
Line 3. Six syllables showing action
Line 4. Eight syllables expressing a feeling or an observation about the subject
Line 5. Two syllables describing or renaming the subject

Revise and edit poems according to suggestions offered in the subsection on "Connecting Reading and Writing" in Chapter 2. Display student poetry by making a "poet tree": stretch a piece of butcher paper from the ceiling to the floor and attach the poems to it.

From Alora Valdez, Learning in Living Color: Using Literature to Incorporate Multicultural Education into the Primary Curriculum, ©1999, Allyn & Bacon, pp31-34.

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