Theme: | Being comfortable with difference |
Age Group: | Kindergarten |
Learning Area: | Personal Development, Health and Physical Education |
Outcomes: | IRES1.11 |
Students talk about family and the people who care for them.
- This activity encourages students to recognise and respect all family structures.
- Sensitivity is needed when discussing students’ family circumstances. Texts which reflect different family structures can be used to educate about diversity and discourage bias.
- Fly Away Home tells the story of a father and son who live in an airport. Any similar text which presents different family structures may be used instead. Possible examples include A Chair for My Mother (audiobook) by Vera B. Williams, You Will Always be my Dad by Ann de Bode & Rien Broere, Reflections of Family Diversity photos by FKA Multicultural Resource Centre. If reading more than one text, encourage the students to identify the ways that different texts can create different personal responses.
- Brainstorm the following with the class:
- What is a home?
- What does a home provide?
- Who lives in my home?
- Are all families and homes the same?
- Read Fly Away Home by Eva Bunting or similar text to initiate discussion about different family situations.
- Discuss the following with the class, in relation to the text:
- What is a home? Is the home in the story similar or different to student’s own?
- Who lives in the home in the story?
- Using the handout: My family [DOC], ask students to create simple family trees by drawing faces of family members.
- Label the faces of family members for students.
- Ask students to sit in a circle and share their family trees with the class. Encourage students to understand that each family is unique and special, and that there is no one way to be a family.