Paper doll chains on MLK day

On the heels of my belated reading of the "Nurture Shock" excerpt about talking with kids frankly about race (see my Jan. 10 post), here comes Martin Luther King Jr. day. Will and I talked about who Martin Luther King Jr. was and what he believed in; we looked up photos of him online; and listened, by chance, to excerpts from his speeches on NPR.

Then I cut out some paper doll chains. It's a very simple task, but I must admit that I had to look up how to fold and cut them here. We had little chains of four dolls and bigger chains of two. Will drew brown- and white-skinned girls on the two-doll chains and then decided he wanted to make a sign for them to hold. So he cut this out and wrote his message: "Be nice to people even if they have a different skin color." All his idea, other than my cutting of the paper dolls.