My students need a set of ethnically diverse puppets, and puppets of every skin tone that have various occupations: doctors, police officers, chefs and more!
First grade is such an exciting stage of rapid development. Students are expected to grow a significant amount of levels in both reading and math, and my kiddos are up for the challenge! They are silly, creative and compassionate.
My students face many obstacles on their path to success, but I am dedicated to ensuring their access to resources and supplies isn't ever one of them!
My students bond into a classroom family, building each other up and always pushing each other to do their very bests. They are wiggly learners, and love to learn by getting their hands messy with content!
My Project
Our school and community aren't especially ethnically or racially diverse. Through the use of these puppets, my students will become comfortable in discussions of race throughout natural childhood play. We will use the puppets to re-tell stories we've read at reading groups or read-aloud time.
I aim to explicitly and implicitly teach more global awareness in my first-grade classroom to open my students' minds to the diversity within the planet.
My students will explore important racial conversations, guided by kindness and acceptance. The puppets provide a cornerstone of normalcy in an engaging and enriching way to lead the conversation in our classroom community.
Two of the sets of puppets are created with various skin tones in mind. The occupation set includes doctors, police officers, chefs and other careers, and will help to instigate a conversation that these careers aren't defined by any one race or skin color. This will provide an open, safe place to discuss that students can be anything they want to be when they grow up, as long as they work hard each and every day.
The final set is to access more of the literacy component, and allow my students to re-tell stories from reading groups or read-alouds with animals that are present in many first grade level stories.
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As a teacher-founded nonprofit, we're trusted by thousands of teachers and supporters across the country. This classroom request for funding was created by Ms. Mahoney and reviewed by the DonorsChoose team.
