Young, Gifted and Black

from the Hummingbirds teaching team (lightly edited for space)

A Hummingbird parent recently visited our room to read books in celebration of Black History Month.  First, she read a short biography about Josephine Baker. She also read about Mae Jemison, the first African-American woman to travel into space. She also shared one of her daughter's favorite books, Little Troublemaker Makes a Mess, by Luvvie Ajayi Jones.  

Mother and daughter kindly let us borrow the first book, Young, Gifted, and Black: Meet 52 Black Heroes from Past and Present by Jamia Wilson. Our class learned about Katherine Johnson from this book on Wednesday. On Friday, the students voted for the biographies they wanted to read that day. Misty Copeland and Simone Biles tied for first place. Some children shared what they already knew about these two women. All of us were amazed and energized to watch video clips of Misty and Simone. Some were inspired to display ballet moves while watching the video and one child shared that she is also a dancer.

These books built our class discussions and prompted re-readings of the book Our Skin: A First Conversation About Race by Jessica Ralli and Megan Madison. This book sparked the children to share what they knew about their skin, the colors of their skin, the words they can use to describe the color of their skin, and how skin color may vary on one single person or among family members.  Our class pooled ideas on how to describe the color of their skin, from color words like "white", "tan" or "brown", to describing words like "light" or "deep", to other words like "Asian", "biracial" or "Person of Color". Students were asked what they loved about their skin, prompting responses like, "Its color" and "It is soft."

We learned about melanin, something smart inside of our bodies that protects our skin from the sun and gives it a unique and special color.

From there, our class embarked on an art project to mix colors to create our own, unique skin tones. Students sampled a variety of colors to achieve a color that they felt reflected their skin. As students painted, exclamations of "This is my skin color!" and "My skin is the same color as my dad's skin!" could be heard.

Our class will read more books as we continue discussions about skin and identity, as well as carry on with our art project.