Classroom Guidance Diversity/Tolerance

Title of Lesson: The Crayon Box That Talked Time Required: 30 minutes

Grade Level: First-Fourth

ASCA National Standard: Personal/Social

Standard A: Students will acquire the knowledge, attitudes and interpersonal skills to help them understand and respect self and others.

PS-A1 Acquire Interpersonal Skills

PS-A1.9 Demonstrate cooperative behavior in groups

PS-A2 Acquire Interpersonal Skills

PS-A2.4 Recognize, accept and appreciate ethnic and cultural diversity

Materials

The Crayon Box that Talked by Shane DeRolf

Drawing paper

Crayons—red, blue, yellow, green

CD—I Will Be Your Friend from Teaching Tolerance

Box of crayons with all the same color--blue

Objectives

  1. The students will learn that each Individual is unique.
  2. The students will practice cooperative behavior in a group situation.

Activity

(tape a large piece of paper to the chalkboard) Start to draw a picture like clouds…have children come up and take a crayon out of my box and add something to the picture…house, grass, flower, etc. Soon they see that every crayon in the box is the same color.

Discussion

  • How could we make this picture better? (more colors)

Aren’t you glad our world is not all the same color?

  • What would our world be like if we were all the same? Same color houses, cars, people, same show on TV all of the time, same food etc.
  • How are we different? How are we the same?
  • The ways we are different makes us special—who we are
  • Sometimes people don’t like other people who are different—clothes, hair, skin color. They forget what our world would be like if we were all the same.

I am going to read you a book that will help you understand why it is important to get along with others even if they are different than you.

Cooperative Groups—Divide the glass into groups of 4…each person in the group gets a different color crayon. Each student will only use that color. The group is to make a picture using all of the colors. Students sign their names using their color. Share pictures. Students are to do this silently. Play the CD during the group activity

Closing

Think of yourself as one of the colors in the box of crayons. Each of you is unique but we need others to make our world complete. Every one of us has things that make us special. There is no one else just like you. If you meet someone who is different in some way be nice to him or her. They might just be a good friend for you.