Books can encourage kids of all ages to enact change in their communities. Because it’s never too early to make a difference, we’ll be sharing a list of social activism books for each grade level. Check out our social activism book roundup for second grade below and for more social activism titles, check out our full printable Social Activism Diverse Reading List!
Books can encourage kids of all ages to enact change in their communities. Because it’s never too early to make a difference, we’ll be sharing a list of social activism books for each grade level. Check out our social activism book roundup for first grade below and for more social activism titles, check out our full printable Social Activism Diverse Reading List!
Here at Lee & Low, we are incredibly excited about the release of Every Month is a New Year, an amazing picture book from beloved author, Marilyn Singer, and illustrator, Susan L. Roth. This book has a wealth of curricular opportunities, and offers chances for students, teachers, librarians, and families alike to learn all about new year celebrations around the world and share their own cultural and familial celebrations. All of the celebrations have deep-rooted traditions and treasured customs. The collection of sixteen lively poems introduce readers to some of the most fascinating festivities, some well-known and less familiar (depending on the reader!) Continue reading
Our release and popularity of the Social Activism Diverse Reading List has got us thinking over here at LEE & LOW about the importance of sharing Social Activism resources with educators. Social Activism, especially in this volatile political climate, is necessary in inspiring students to enact change in their own communities. Read-alouds and mentor texts are also crucial in showing students historical figures who fought for justice and equality.
With Social Activism in mind, we are proud to release the Martí’s Song for Freedom/Martí y sus versos por la libertad Teacher’s Guide! José Martí was certainly an activist as well as a brilliant political writer and courageous fighter of freedom for all people. We wanted to highlight a few specific Social Activism activities that can be done with students in the classroom. Here are a few activities directed towards Social Activism that can be found in the full Guide here: Continue reading
October is National Bullying Prevention Month, a movement meant to “unite communities around the world to educate and raise awareness of bullying prevention.” In this blog post, we gathered titles from our Bullying/Anti-Bullying Collection that feature stories about different experiences with bullying and peer pressure and how to overcome and accept people’s differences. Use these books to start important discussions with children about bullying, including bully prevention, conflict resolution, and the skills needed to navigate these situations.
Teachers, let’s talk about a popular topic across education blogs and Pinterest: the classroom library. A quick search on the Internet results in numerous tips, tricks, and ideas for different ways to configure and organize your classroom library. It’s an intensive and thoughtful process that involves thinking about genre, reading levels, interest levels, grade-level content, categories, and themes.
Unfortunately, we often see classroom libraries that group diverse books into categories that isolate or limit their use. Simply having a book bin labeled “cultures from around the world” or “black history month books” does not mean your library is culturally responsive. We need to think critically about how these books reflect the diversity of our students, their backgrounds, and the communities in which we live while exposing them to new ideas and concepts. Does your classroom library contain books that include main characters of color or with disabilities? Do your books featuring people of color only focus on issues of race, prejudice, or discrimination? Do they go beyond ethnic heritage months? Do they only focus on cultural traditions and foods? Continue reading
LEE & LOW BOOKS celebrates its 25th anniversary this year and to recognize how far the company has come, we are featuring one title a week to see how it is being used in classrooms today as well, as hear from the authors and illustrators. Continue reading
