Grades 3-8
Social justice can be a very hard topic to discuss at any
age, let alone with young children. Watch
Out for Flying Kids tackles many important topics, each applicable in
different ways to most kids who read it. Yet, understanding the issues that
surround the kids in this book can be hard to grasp. Try this activity with
your class in order to better understand the complexities behind equality:
- Bring to class enough lemons for each of your
students to have one.
- Distribute the lemons to the students and ask
them to “Get to know their lemon.”
- Students may look for any unique marks on the
lemons surface, its shape, and can even draw on the lemon if they wish, so long
as they know which lemon is theirs.
- Collect the lemons and put them in one basket;
ask the students to retrieve their lemon (students should have no trouble with
this).
- After the students have retrieved their lemons,
collect them once more until Part II of the activity the next day.
- Before class the next day, peal each of the
student’s lemons and return them to the basket.
- When the students come in for class, ask them to
please find their lemon in the basket.
- The students should not be able to differentiate
between the lemons; this will teach them that although we all look different on
the outside, on the inside we are all people with hopes and dreams just like
everyone else.
- Following the activity, prompt a discussion
about how this lesson is learned in Watch
Out for Flying Kids.
For the full summary of
Watch Out For Flying Kids!, click
here. For more information about the above activity, click
here.
