I am Brown by Ashok Banker and illustrated by Sandhya Prabhat and published by Lantana is a beautiful book about being a brown person. It is about everything that brown people are and what they do. It has beautifully detailed pictures and lots of words that are nicely scattered all over the page. It is very busy and my son loved looking at all the different pictures and things going on.
Activities
Dressing up
Learning words in a different language
Map activity
Country research
Who am I Game
Different place of worship visit
Museum trip
Building different houses
Different houses, different people discussion
Noodles
Tagliatelle
Biryani
Samosa
Barbecue food
Indoor
There are lots of fun indoor activities that go along with this book as it mentions many different activities within it. You could get lots of different types of clothes including those of different communities and of various jobs and put them in a big pile on the floor and your child/children could play dressing up. Hats could also be included. We always have a box of different hats available in our playroom as my son is obsessed with them. You could do music time with your child and listen to some songs in different languages. These could be songs that you already know and then they can be learnt in the language that you choose. If you didn't want to do songs then you teach your child/children hello and goodbye in different languages as this could be useful for them later on in life. If you have a large map available or map jigsaw of the world then you could look at it with your child/children and look at the different countries on the map. Your child/children could choose a country they like and research it on the computer or they could find a book in the library about that country. You could play the Who Am I Game and use famous brown people as the people to guess. If your children are not able to read well yet then you could get a picture of the person instead. The aim of the game is to not know who you are so lay the cards face down and then choose someone and show everyone else who they are. You need to then ask questions to try and guess who you are. Younger children might need help but it is a good way to get them asking the right questions to find out the information they want to know.
Outdoor
A good outdoor activity to go along with this book could be to go and see some different places of worship. They are scattered everywhere and then you can have a discussion about different beliefs and religions if you want to. Another out and about activity could be to go to a museum and look at the history of different people. Young children can benefit from this as they can look at the historic artefacts and you can encourage older children to read some of the information to you. For an outdoor activity closer to home you could take some blocks/bricks outside and encourage your child/children to build some different types of houses. There is a page of different houses that people live in so you could challenge them to make some of these. You could have a discussion about different houses and the different people that live in them.
Food/Cooking
There are lots of different foods that are mentioned in the book so I just chose a few of them that might be fun for you and your child/children to try. If the selection I have chosen are regular food choices in your house then you could look at the food page and choose something different to try. Noodles is a fun one to try because you can use them in so many different ways. You could have them plain, in a sauce and with different vegetables and meats. Tagliatelle is also another food that can be served with different sauces, vegetables and meats and it is fun to see it go from being really hard and crunchy to being tasty and soft. You could try a biryani or a samosa and barbecue food is mentioned in the book so these are all different things that you can have a play around with and taste. You can get your child/children involved with the cooking by giving them little jobs to do and it is a good thing for them to see how different foods are cooked. Don't forget to share your creations in the forum and on Instagram. I would love to see them.
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