Gender and race can be difficult concepts to discuss appropriately and purposefully with students eight and nine-years-old, specifically those that have challenges with expressive language and pragmatic skills. In my classroom, I aim to pique interest and provide children with a developmentally appropriate forum to explore conceptual topics through multi-sensory activities and non-judgmental conversations. 

Below are a few samples of different lessons I've created to begin developmentally-appropriate discussions of gender and race in my third and fourth grade classrooms. Credit is due to colleagues whose input and collaboration was invaluable. 

Gender

Below is a Venn diagram created with my class in the 2015-2016 school year. Each student wrote down one thing they believed boys liked, and one thing they believed that girls liked. After submitting the anonymous suggestions, our class went through each and discussed whether or not this "like" was solely for boys or girls. We began with a two-column chart and then changed our visual to a Venn in order to more effectively plot the fluid nature of gender. 

One child, for instance, began this activity declaring that boys and girls were "not alike," and that there were many things that boys could do that girls could not and vice versa. When we came to a paper that read "girls like doing their hair," this same student raised his hand to volunteer that he, in fact, spent a lot of time doing his hair and really enjoyed it. At the end of the lesson, we reflected on his original comment and used the Venn as a visual depiction of the fluidity of gender. 

Please see a list of resources and lessons I've compiled for engaging children in discussions regarding gender fluid, gender questioning, and transgender children. 

Race

In order to start the discussion of race in my classroom, I wrote down six different jobs that are commonly seen in our community. These jobs included: police officer, mayor, teacher, bus driver, nurse and construction worker. I asked children to draw each and provided a variety of crayons, including the Crayola multicultural crayons. The final pictures varied, but as a class we were able to see patterns: most of the mayors and police officers were drawn with caucasian skin tones, while the bus drivers and construction workers were often done in brown colors. Some students confessed that they hadn't considered the skin color of their drawings, while others had firm opinions on what races usually had certain jobs. The drawings were used as a vehicle for rich discussion of why we associate certain jobs with certain people, and whether or not these associations are helpful in our society. 

It's important to note that the lessons used to talk about race can be adapted to discuss gender, and vice versa. We tried this lesson again but instead of focussing on race, we noted the roles of women versus men.