After sharing some stories and texts for children that aim to explain how we are all equal and all have the same rights as one another, as well as stories that are true accounts of people that made positive and important changes in the world (Children's Books About Inclusion, Equality and Diversity). We wanted to continue to support in finding ways to continue the lessons at home.
Parents are faced with the challenges of explaining racism and equality to their children and children may be asking questions over things that they’ve seen in the past few days, for example disturbing videos, demonstrators in the streets across cities in America, and now globally, or things that they may have witnessed first hand.
These ideas and scenes can be confusing and scary for young minds and eyes. We wanted to share some activities to continue to educate and explain about inclusion, diversity and equality for you to share at home together.
The Egg Activity to Teach Diversity & Inclusion
You will need:
White eggs
Brown eggs
Two small bowls
Procedure:
Sit down with your child or children.
Label the two bowls, one with “White Shell” and one with “Brown Shell.”
Give each child a white egg and a brown egg.
Have the students discuss the differences they see in the eggs.
Allow your children to crack the white egg in the bowl labeled “White Shell” and the brown egg in the bowl labeled “Brown Shell.”
Have your children discuss the differences they see in the egg yolks.
Continue with the discussion questions below.
Discussion Questions:
• What were the differences you saw in the two eggs on the outside?
• What differences did you see in the two eggs when you cracked them open?
• How does our activity with the eggs relate to people?
Apple Activity to Teach About Diversity
You will need:
Apples of different colour, ideally a red apple, a green apple and a yellow apple. (If you cannot find apples of different colours, then size is also good)
Procedure:
Show your child/children the apples.
Let your child explore them and discuss the differences. You could go on to draw the apples, or colour them. Discuss the colours that they see.
After you have finished the discussion of the outside characteristics, have a cut each of the apples in half. Without showing your child the OUTSIDE of the apple, ask if they can tell the colour of the apple by looking at the INSIDE only. Chances are, they won’t be able to.
Discussion:
This activity is a wonderful conversation to have about the celebration of diversity.
It is also lovely that inside of the apples there is the shape of a star, which can be linked to the human heart. The message being, ‘Although we may all look different on the outside, we all look the same on the inside. We should be accepting of the variety of colours that are seen in our environment and the world around us, but to know, we are all the same at the end of the day. We all have families, we all want love, we all want to be LOVED, we all want something to hope for!'
The Smarties Activity to Teach About Equality
You will need:
Sweets, such as Smarties or M&M’s
Procedure:
Give out the sweets in uneven numbers. For example, give one child 2, another 15 and keep the majority for yourself.
Ask the children, is this fair?
Ask them their feelings. Is it fair? Why not?
Note down their feelings. How do they feel that they have so few? E.g. “upset”, “sad” or “angry”. How do they feel if they have more than someone else? “pleased” and “happy”. Some children may feel “disappointed” that the distribution was unfair despite having done well themselves.
Discuss how you might redistribute for it to be fair.
Children should all agree that they should each get an equal number.
Create different scenarios for the children to debate. E.g. ‘You're wearing a blue t-shirt so you get 5 more sweets.’ or ‘You have green eyes so you get 10 more sweets.’ Is that fair? Encouraging children to question fairness and equality is a great way for them to learn about it.
The Colours of Me Activity
You will need:
Paper
Coloured crayons or pens
Mirror
Procedure:
Ask your child/children to look at themselves in the mirror.
What colours do they see? Are they one colour?
Explain that we are a rainbow of colours and that one colour should not define us!
We hope that you find these activities helpful and that we have been supportive to all parents and carers.