The 4th R, Creating a Human Rights Culture:
The Role of Service Learning, vol. 8 No. 1, Spring 1997.

Activity


Enjoying Diversity

Goals:

Age/grade level: Adaptable to any elementary school age group

Materials: Drawing paper, markers or crayons, and tape

Procedure:

  1. Participants are asked to close their eyes and think of their favorite animal and two characteristics they like about it.
  2. The teacher and students then share their choices with the class.
  3. The teacher leads a discussion of how different and uniquely special each choice is.
  4. The children are guided to transfer the discussion to differences in people that can be appreciated. The teacher can highlight special gifts of each student and encourage students to say what they think is special about each other. At this point, the teacher explains words such as prejudice and stereotype that do not value differences.
  5. Teacher(s) or two students do a role-play: they pretend to meet on the playground and express their dislike of each other's hair, skin color, etc. Have children talk about how it feels when someone doesn't like you for no good reason. Then, the skit is replayed with the players meeting and being nice to each other. The children talk about the good feelings and friendships that come with acceptance.
  6. Review the words and concepts through questioning.
  7. The children then draw and color their favorite animal to be placed on the wall.
  8. Review and question again with a lot of positive reinforcement.

This lesson was developed and designed and contributed by Amanda Bass, Whitney Parrott, and Katie Huard, students at Mandeville High School in Mandeville, Louisiana. They presented this lesson to a class of second graders with great success.



URL for areas of image outside of any defined elements.