The Read Aloud Project was created by Priscilla Weddle and Marie Benner-Rhoades to provide homeschooling resources in peace and justice during the pandemic. For September, the project highlighted books about peace skills and Hispanic culture. We will continue to read children’s books about these topics through October. In November, the project will highlight books about Native American culture to celebrate Native American Heritage Month as well as books about voting and elections. If you are interested in recording a video for the project, please email Priscilla at [email protected]. Here are the books that were read for the project in September:

Elephant & Piggie: Should I Share My Ice Cream? By Mo Willems

Summary: Gerald buys ice cream one day and wonders if he should share it with his best friend Piggie. He goes back and forth on whether he should share his ice cream until he decides to share with Piggie. But, by the time Gerald comes to this decision, the ice cream has melted. He is very sad. Piggie shows up with ice cream and shares it with Gerald to make him feel better.

Reflective Question: How does sharing with your friends make you feel?

Worksheet: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1nG5z0Hhd6IZIFrynw-wBtPfQDpUDnP-ByBa9gPoXifw/edit.

With the 2020 presidential election coming up, I wanted to create a list of children’s books about voting and elections to help answer questions children might have about it. I picked out books that highlighted the election process and addressed the history of voting rights in the U.S. Here is the list of books:

Lillian’s Right to Vote: A Celebration of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 by Jonah Winter, Illustrated by Shane W. Evans

As Lillian, a one-hundred-year-old African American woman, makes a “long haul up a steep hill” to her polling place, she sees more than trees and sky—she sees her family’s history. She sees the passage of the Fifteenth Amendment and her great-grandfather voting for the first time. She sees her parents trying to register to vote. And she sees herself marching in a protest from Selma to Montgomery. 

With the school year starting, I was curious about what books teachers were planning on using in their classrooms. So, I reached out to my sister Brittany and asked her to talk about her favorite children’s books to read in the classroom and why. It should be noted that the books she recommended are for grades 5 and 6. Here is a list of books she mentioned along with why she enjoys them:

Grace for President by Kelly DiPucchio

“This book is one of my favorites because it displays a young African American female as the main character. It places her in a position of power that she worked hard for. This is not always the norm in children’s books, so it felt good to see a positive story with a minority as the lead.”

The Read Aloud Project was created by Priscilla Weddle and Marie Benner-Rhoades to provide homeschooling resources in peace and justice during the pandemic. For August, the project highlighted books about peace skills. In September, there will be activity sheets to go along with the videos. If you are interested in recording a video for the project, please email Priscilla at [email protected]. Here are the books that were read for the project in August:

Thank You, Omu! By Oge Mora

Summary: Everyone in the neighborhood dreams of a taste of Omu’s delicious stew! One by one, they follow their noses toward the scrumptious scent. And one by one, Omu offers a portion of her meal. Soon the pot is empty. Has she been so generous that she has nothing left for herself?

Reflective Question: Why do you think that sharing is important?

Written by Tamera Shaw and Grace Cook-Huffman

As On Earth Peace’s Racial Justice Intern Organizers, Grace Cook-Huffman and I, Tamera Shaw, led the fourth and final session of the “Raising Race Conscious Kids” webinar series. This session covered the future of racial justice. When thinking about how to frame this session, the first thing that came to mind was the need to provide a resource list for people to access after the completion of our webinar series. When talking about such a heavy topic, we knew that the previous three sessions weren’t going to be enough to address everything that exists in the world of race consciousness. We struggled with connecting our highlighted topics to raising kids because neither of us have children. However, we also wanted to include topics that might not necessarily be for children, but for those teaching children. We, as the teachers to children, must be doing the work as well.