Same As Me
“Same As Me” is an activity where
children are asked to describe how their bodies are the same as other
children’s bodies. I chose the activity “Same As Me” because I like how it
encourages children to find their similarities. I also feel like there are lots
of ways this activity can be modified and extended. I think I could really
elaborate on the idea of similarities, especially with school aged children, if
they were interested.
This activity is well suited to do
with a mixed age group because by two years old children are beginning to
define themselves by physical characteristics, such as skin color, hair color,
and anatomy (York , 16). They are
able to identify many body parts on themselves and others. They will be able to
see that like them, someone else has two eyes, or a belly button. These are
simple similarities young children can see. As they get older, children are
more aware of specific eye color, hair color and texture, height, weight and
gender. I would like to do this with young children, older children, and then
again with the mixed age group. I think it would be good for older children to
see that the younger children are like them, this might help with their
patience with the younger children; and younger children might gain comfort
knowing that the older children are more like them than they may have realized.
“Same As Me” addresses several
themes that can be expanded to include multicultural education. Some of the
themes mentioned in the hand out “Anti-Bias Activity Goals” that this activity
addresses are: Provide children with a positive experience exploring
similarities and differences, Promote respect toward others, and Teach children
how to cooperate with others. This activity also could be incorporated in the
themes of Bodies, I’m Me and I’m Special, and Friends (York ,
180). By doing the activity in a large group setting the children would learn
respect by listening to what others have to say and waiting patiently for their
turn to share. They would also learn how
to cooperate be giving additional input on the similarities found by others.
This activity supports Goal One of
Anti-bias Education by nurturing each child’s individual identity as well as
their group identity (Derman-Sparks, 4). By exploring similarities with
children we are first looking at what makes them who they are, then finding out
who else is the same. This reinforces that we are all the same in many ways, and helps build a stronger group
connection. “Same As Me” also supports Goal Two, which states that children
will express comfort and joy with human diversity, accurate language for human
differences, and a deep, caring human connection (Derman-Sparks, 4). This is
done by first noticing the similarities among ourselves, which then leads to
seeing the differences. Sally notices
that she and Bobby both have brown hair, and then sees that her best friend
Beth’s hair is red. According to Anti-Bias Education for Young Children
and Ourselves it is best to start with what children already know and have
experienced, which is why talking about bodies is a perfect opener to more in
depth multicultural, anti-bias lessons. Goals Tree and Four might come into
play during this activity as well. If a child makes an unfair statement, such
as Bobby is not like me, he’s fat, this
could be recognized (Goal Three) and then we could explore how to act against
this discriminatory/prejudiced behavior (Goal Four).
To begin the activity I would
gather the children on the rug and start with a little movement activity. Some
guided stretching, such as reach both arms up over your head, touch your toes,
sit down and stretch your legs out in front of you, twist to the side, etc. to
get the children thinking about their body parts. With younger children I would
include some songs, such as “Head, Shoulders, Knees and Toes.” I would then
show some photos of people in various cultures, ethnicities, physical abilities
and situations and talk about the similarities in their bodies. After this I
would put up a poster board and begin asking specific questions, “Sally, tell
me something you notice about Bobby’s body that is the same as yours.” I would
do this for various pairs of children, writing down their comments on the
poster board. After I had included everyone a couple of times I would ask them
to identify similarities in themselves and the people in the photos we had
talked about earlier. I would have another person taking photos of the children
in our group as we did the activity and later make a new display including our
class photos, the magazine photos, and the children’s quotes, which I would
display in the classroom.
This activity could be expanded on
in many ways. We could move from similarities to differences and make another
display showing the differences. We could use large pieces of butcher paper and
trace the children’s bodies and have them color or paint themselves, then
display them on the walls according to similarities, such as height, hair
color, etc. We could use various books, such as "We Are All Alike, We Are All
Different," which shows images and illustrations of children describing how they are alike and different, "Leo the Late Bloomer", about a tiger cub who develops slower than his peers in the jungle, but eventually "blooms" , and "Susan Laughs," about a young girl who uses a wheelchair, but does many of the same things as other children, to talk
about how, while everyone has differences both physical and developmental, we
also have many similarities.
I like this activity because it can
be fairly simple, but can be expanded upon based on the children’s interest. This
could lead into many other activities and really delve into diversity. Once
children begin to see that humans have so many similarities I think they can
really begin to understand that we all deserve respect and compassion. Then
they can begin to appreciate and celebrate the differences.
