Page 14 - Teacher Guide Book

BookConnect: Building Community One Book at a Time
Area of Focus: Personal & Community Well-Being

Topic: Celebrating Diversity and Inclusion
Level 2: Learn, Ages 5-8

TEACHER GUIDE: SAME, SAME BUT DIFFERENT

Book 5 of 10

Share the Book Initiate Discussion

Invite students to consider similarities in the lives of Elliot
and Kailash. And differences? Are their lives more similar
or more different?

Have students explore with whom they identify more
closely: Kailash or Elliott. What are the reasons for this
identification?

What do Kailash and Elliot learn from each other? How
can we all learn from those who are different than us?

The book’s cover shows one boy right-side up and the
other upside-down. Invite students to consider why the
SAME, SAME BUT illustrator might have portrayed them this way.

DIFFERENT If Kailash and Elliot were to swap places and find
themselves living in the other's country, what would they
by Jenny Sue Kostecki-Shaw find easy to adapt to? What would they find hard?

Coordinate Group Activities

Ready, Set, Travel! Pen Pals from Around the World

Use a globe to show your students where India and Have students imagine they can choose a pen pal
the US are located. Play a game of "Boat, Train or from anywhere in the world. What country would
Plane", finding many different ways of getting from they choose? What would their friend's name be?
the US to India. As they travel, have students take Who would be in their family? How would they live,
note of oceans, continents, countries, rivers, dress, eat, learn, play, celebrate? In pictures or
mountain ranges, etc. that they cross. words, have the students create a "pretend" letter
that they might receive from their pen pal.

Help students recognize that vast as the world may
be, all of it is accessible to each one of us – through You may wish to create a collage of all the
books or in reality. Even though distances and “created” friends for students to examine, enjoy and
differences may seem intimidating, open- discuss. This will expose students to lives and
mindedness can lead to unlimited possibilities. experiences from around the world.
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