*Mini class video is coming at the end of this post.*

Teaching and promoting diversity in early childhood is very important. 

I looked through some diversity books for toddlers and preschoolers and this is one of the good ones.

“The Skin You Live in” by Michael Tyler.

This book does a good job in explaining for young children that the skin is where we live in and it’s just ourselves. 

“The skin you laugh in; The skin you cry in”

😌Beautiful description, right?

There is a part in the middle of the book that I don’t really like though. 😐 When it talks about what the skin is not about, the sentences are too long and confusing for children. I suggest  you cut the part into small pieces and rephrase them. 

For example, 

“It’s not tall skin or short skin, or best in the sport skin; or fat skin or thin skin,…..”

—> “The skin is not about tall or short. The skin is not about best or worst in the sport. The skin is not about fat or thin……”

The illustrations are cute. These are the pages that I liked the most. I like the butterflies with different shades of skin colour. 

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This book is easy so it’s very good for toddlers, too. 

I thought of an activity that children can do after reading this book. It will deepen children’s understanding of diversity, so I recommend to try it.

Making Skin Colours 

Materials

• Paint (white, red, blue, yellow; brown, purple and orange are optional); I first learned about this mixing from ARTBAR and made a little change for this activity.
• Water (for painting) 
• Paint brush
• Paint palette 
• White drawing paper

What To Do

• Put a dollop of paint (for each colour) on a palette.
• Show your child how to mix colours on the palette.
• Start with brown and try adding a tiny bit of different colours. Every time you add a bit of different colour, you will end up getting different colour, and with that colour, draw a circle on a white drawing paper. 

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• Experiment with colours and fill the white drawing paper with many circles of different colours. 
• When your paper is full, dry it.

Draw faces

Materials

• Marker

What To Do

• Draw eyes, nose, mouth etc. on each circle.

If you are doing this activity with a toddler and drawing faces is too hard, you can print out different kinds of eyes, noses, mouths and let your toddler glue them on the circles. 

GET my eye, nose and mouth drawings here.

These are very simple activities. But colour mixing and coming up with different skin tone every time is fascinating.

Give your child a time to experiment and learn all different shades of skin colour. 

This is learning how to learn. 🙂

Happy learning and quality time!

Missangela👩🏻‍🦰🎀

🦄 Do you want to do this activity with Missangela?

🦄 Get your materials and let’s do it!