Parker PreK : Black History Month, Black Tea, and SNOW.....

These few days have been packed with activity and thought. This week we have been reading the following books, and they have given us space and time for thought and conversation.

Speak Up by Miranda Paul and Ebony Glen

All Are Welcome by Alexandra Penfold and Suzanne Kaufmann

The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind by William Kwamkanda, Bryan Mealer, and Elizabeth Zunon

Each Kindness by Jaqueline Woodson and E.B.Lewis

Our conversations have been about how we treat others, and that our words and behavior have power. We learned about Garrett Morgan, the man who invented the traffic light. We learned that he was not treated well because of his dark skin and that he had to work hard to share his ideas. We were glad that Garrett Morgan didn't give up because his ideas were important! We talked about how that made us feel, and even how it feels to us when we are not included. I said that made me uncomfortable. We talked about how we need to treat people, our favorite colors, and kindness! Our rule at school is, if someone asks to play we need to say "yes!". We hope to convey to the children that it is important to be kind and accepting of everyone. We even talked about colors, as one of the children said "that's a boy color!" We decided that colors are all acceptable and we can have our own favorites. The world is a wonderful rainbow of color! When we have discussions like this, teachers are careful not to say "that's not right!" but rather to ask and converse. and empower.

We colored traffic lights and learned a traffic light song to honor the history of Garrett Morgan.

The book Speak UP! gave us ideas about how to speak up for others and ourselves. We know, in our classroom, that we have the ability to comfort each other, as we practice it every day. We learned from the story that we can ask for help, be an ally, and that kindness goes a long long way. The children put the words of the book into action by creating their own signs. Some of the words that they used to "speak up" were "you can sit next to me!" "I love you!" "you can play with me!" and "do you want to play with me?"

Another topic running through our classroom has been the book The Bear Snores On by Karma Wilson. We have been reading this book and gathering materials to fill a box, which is called a "jackdaw", that we will contribute to the jackdaw treasure hunt this Friday. We noticed that whenever we read the words "and they brewed black tea" the children, as a group, chorused "EWWWW." That gave us the idea to actually TRY brewing black tea in the classroom and get a good look at it and even taste it. Sometimes a strong reaction might denote fear of the unknown. We gave it a try, and opened tea bags, glued tea to cardboard, smelled black tea, brewed it in a teapot and tried it, and even painted with brewed tea (it smelled very good but did not make much color!). Most interestingly, the tea tasted "like nothing" or "like water" or "delicious". We realized that black tea is only a name for tea. We are happy to be tea authorities. We might even be able to spell "tea."