same, same and different

Community building.

It's one of the most important things I do at the beginning of the school year.

We learn to respect and celebrate our differences.  Our differences make life fun - I tell the kidlets "wouldn't it be boring if we were all the same".

And the things that are the same - aren't they the things that are at the core of our human-ness?

We have a couple of books that we read together celebrating our "same same and different".  

(In Thailand, there is a saying "same same but different".  I am choosing to adapt it to celebrate our sameness and our differences.)

Two Eyes, a Nose and a Mouth

author/illustrator:  Roberta Grobel Intrater

published: Cartwheel Book (1995)

ages 4-7

summary

More than 100 full-color photos fill this unique picture book with eyes, noses and mouths of people of all races, shapes and sizes--and the rollicking rhyme throughout celebrates our differences and our similarities.  Goodreads

beginning lines

Two eyes, a nose and a mouth, 

they're the first things that we see

on millions and millions of faces

from Tibet to Tennessee.

We Are All Alike We Are All Different

authors and illustrators:

Cheltenham Elementary School Kindergarten Class of 1991

photographer: Laura Dwight

published: Scholastic (1991)

ages 4-7

summary

"We Are All Alike... We Are All Different," a book written by children for children, reinforces multicultural and anti-bias learning and appreciation. With original drawings and their own lyrical words, the children in Rosalind Goldberg's kindergarten class at Cheltenham Elementary School in Pennsylvania share the ways they look and feel, the games they play, the foods they like, the homes they live in, and the families they live with, concluding that "We are all alike. We are all different. We are a family." Goodreads

beginning lines

We are all alike.  We are all people.  

We are all different.  We do not look the same.   

I love both these books because they have a profound message, presented  with simplicity and with beautiful photography.   

activities

Ms Barbara from For the Children, looked at skin colours with her pre-school class.  They matched their skin colours with multi-cultural skin colour paint and created self portraits.  Beautiful.

The brown egg shell - white egg shell activity is a great one to illustrate how we can be different on the outside, but inside, we are all the same. Click on the graphic to take you to Kids Activities Blog's diversity activity.

More important than activities, are the values that we build our classrooms (and homes) on.  Children learn far more from our actions  than they  ever will from our words (and even wonderful learning activities we set up for them). 

As adults, we are responsible to live "same same and different".

Recognizing what makes us the same as everyone else - we live in bodies, we are born into families, we belong somewhere, we need to eat, we like to play,  ...

Living with, accepting, better yet, learning from and celebrating our differences.  

Learning words in a new language, trying different foods, listening to music from somewhere "else" ...

I figure that a bigger world is a more meaningful and enjoyable world.  It would be so boring if we were all the same.  

from Todd Parr's The Peace Book

As the Cheltenham Kindergarten kids said: 

We are all alike.

We are all different.

We are a family.  

This Sesame Street clip may be a bit dated in clothing and hair styles, but the message is still relevant and all children will always be beautiful.  Enjoy.

other books
Who Ever You Are - Mem Fox
Shades of People - Sheila M Kelly
The Colour of Us - Karen Katz
It's Okay to be Different - Todd Parr
All the Colour of the Earth - Sheila Hamanaka