ALIKE AND DIFFERENT

Activities

The objective of Alike and Different is to instill in children a greater awareness of others around them, especially those who are different. At the same time, the unit promotes the idea that many different pieces can contribute to the whole.

Opening Activity:
* Mirror Box Activity:
Wrap a box, so that students cannot read the outside; place question marks on the outside. Place a mirror inside. Ask students to guess what is inside. Explain that everyone will see something different. One by one every student looks into box.

* After every student has looked in the box, ask them to create what they saw on paper.

* Students create a self portrait.

* Talk about and encourage the students to discover that everyone is different, however some of us may have similarities.

Activity 2:

Read Leo Lionni's Pezzetino. In this story, Little Pezzetino is so small that he is convinced that he must be a piece of somebody else. A wise man helps him discover the truth. Pezzetino is a wonderful tale that teaches us that we all have a place on earth.

Pezzetino is Italian for “little piece,” and Leo Lionni’s fable is about a little square being who is so small that he believes he must be part of something else. And indeed, every creature he visits to find out where he belongs is made up of little pieces that look a lot like Pezzetino. All say he is not a piece of them. Eventually, “the wise-one who lived in a cave” sends Pezzettino on a journey of self-knowledge to “the Island of Wham,” where the little piece climbs up, up, up, and then, exhausted, falls down – and (wham!) breaks into littler pieces. Thus, his revelation: he is himself – and to be happy to be who he is.

Activity 3:

Read I Am America, students will create a collaborative work of art.

Materials: Canvas, different color ink pads or paints, magnifying glass.

Suggestion: Draw an outline of the U.S. or the world on the canvas. Ask the children to fill in the outline with prints of their thumbs. Let children use the magnifying glass to see how the prints are alike and different. Point out that everyone has patterns on the skin of their fingers and each person's fingerprints are different from everyone else, but side by side we make up one world.