More Detailed Thematic Plan

I didn't go into enough detail on my first post about my thematic plan, so here goes... I strongly believe that my unit theme, Diversity, plays a huge role socially and culturally in todays society. Our nation is continuing to become more diverse and as educators we need to teach our students to learn to live respectfully together and benefit from each other's experiences and knowledge. We all want children to grow up in a world free from discrimination, bias, and racism, but the reality is that we do live in a world where all of these still exist and affect us and those around us more than we realize. The reason I want to focus on Diversity is because as a future educator I want my students to reach for their dreams and believe that whatever they want to be when they grow up, or achieve at any point of their life is possible (don't we all??). Diversity is so much more than different skin color....culturural differences, learning differences, socioeconomic differences are all ways in which Diversity can affect individuals. I want my students to feel included, loved, and celebrated for whoever they are, and NEVER to experience the pain of rejection or exclusion...In teaching students that diversity exists, my hope is for them to try and eliminate the discrimination, biases, and racism that STILL takes place today in 2012. Discrimination is very painful and can leave life long scars and can affect an individuals goals, ambitions, life choices and last but not least, their feeling of self-worth!!!! 


The grade levels that I will focus on will be K-2 :) 


Rough Draft of the first page of my book (still haven't come up with the title, Suggestions welcome) 
As I briefly mentioned somewhere on D2L lol, my book will have a message that accepting people for who they are is more important than what they look like on the outside, what their skin color is (in this case fur color). A mother cat will have 5 kittens and three of them will be white or lighter and two of them will be dark with black fur...the white kittens won't play with the black ones and the mother cat has a talk with them questioning why and then based on their responses explains the importance of not "judging a book by its cover" for a lack of better words (FOR NOW)...Here goes page 1. 


"Sassy was going to give birth any day now! She was so excited to be a mother! She couldn't wait to see how many kittens she would have, how many boys and girls there would be, and what they would look like. None of this really mattered though, like any expecting mother she just wanted them to be healthy."  


Next page. 


"Cats don't pack a bag for the hospital to get ready for when their contractions start, but they do eye up a safe place where they will give birth to their kittens. Sassy had been looking for a place for months and found the purrrrfect spot, in the back of the closet. It was dark, comfortable and seemed like a very safe place for her to welcome the newest members of her family into the world." 


This is just ROUGH, any suggestions or feedback will be greatly appreciated! Thanks so much Bloggers! :)