We have been talking a lot about how children around the world live... What's different, and what's the same.. We have used books such as Playtime or Homes or even Hair to make the children become aware of the differences around them. I have to say that the children really enjoy exploring the world through these books and their interest has started many discussions about how they do it in their own homes and what they think would work if they went to live on a different continent!
I found a colouring page featuring different types of children who live around the world and I thought I would give it to the children and let them use the colours of their choice to see where it would lead us. Some children let their imagination go wild and told me that some of the children they coloured actually didn't leave on planet Earth but came from Mars or Jupiter!!! Others chose different skin colours and thus represented Africa or Asia or Europe accordingly. A few children recognised the clothes the characters were wearing and we were very eager to use the right ones. They are all little perfectionists in their own ways! They needed to know whether they should use brown or yellow for instance. This showed us that through our reading books at circle time, they have detected the various types of skin colours on the continents. They have associated themselves yellow with Chinese and Japanese people and light brown with people coming from Arabic countries and from India. We never influenced their choice of colours but referred to the books we are using in class every time they asked for help. This was a great exercise in diversity teaching!
