Tuesday thoughts and explorations...
/Today Vivian chose a book to read at circle time called Chocolate Me! by Taye Diggs and Shane E. Evans. The book focuses on a boy who journeys from being unsure of his beautiful brown skin to becoming proud of his chocolate brown skin.
This lead to a discussion about that fact that we are all various shades of brown. And as people we get to celebrate all of our differing shades.
I then brought our one of my favorite books: All The Colors We Are: The Story of How We Get Our Skin Color written by my acquaintance and anti-bias leader extraordinaire Katie Kissinger. There is a page in the book where kids may lay their hand and look find where their special shade of brown lies in a continuum of brown. We decided to take a look at our own hands on the page. We noticed the differences in our personal shades.
We also talked about melanin and the fact that how active our melanin is helps determine our unique shade. After the new year, we’ll delve deeper into the science of skin color and take a look and melanin, ancestry and sunlight as part of a project I adapted with my former co-teachers from our friend Kara Hinderlie. She’s been doing an annual project with her kindergartners at Irvington Elementary for years which she calls: Black is Beautiful. A few years ago my co-teachers and I asked her if we might adapt her project for younger kiddos and she readily agreed. For a look at her project and thoughts see: https://www.rethinkingschools.org/articles/black-is-beautiful-54e73a9a-5c1d-464f-ad30-13fe6b8cde24
