Page 22 - 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: SAY SOMETHING

Book 9 of 10

Share the Book Initiate Discussion

What is the author trying to share with readers throughout
this book?

Invite the class to brainstorm ways – other than using words
– for people to have a voice, be heard, and/or make a
change. Have each student reflect and talk about their own
voice: is it music, inventing, poetry, gardening, art, etc.?

Ask students if they have ever felt that no one is listening to
them or understands them. How can they use “their” voice in
such moments?

How do students respond to the voices of others? Do they
take the time to listen, reflect, and respond to them? How?

Is finding a "voice" a big or small thing? How would students
SAY SOMETHING develop and refine their voice so it could make a change or
difference? What changes would they like to see/make with
by Peter H. Reynolds their voice?

Coordinate Group Activities

Find Your Voice – Different Voices, One
Say Something Purpose, Collective Action

Through a class discussion, identify a project
Create a speech board like the end papers in that may add positivity in the class, school,
the book and have each student specify “their and/or community. Have students brainstorm
voice” and how they imagine it being useful in ways in which their special voices can lend
contributing or bringing about a change in the themselves to support such a project. (For
home, class, school, city, country, and/or the example, in adopting an old-age home,
world. (Note: Students should refer to the students may contribute artwork, put on a
"Express Your Feelings" activity in their concert, grow a garden...) Allow students to
handbook and choose the one that's most experience that when unique voices come
meaningful to them.)
together, the results can be powerful.
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