This week, as part of the first-grade "All About Me" theme-based study unit, my students created self-portraits. After using mirrors to closely look at their facial features, the children used watercolors to mix their skin colors for their self-portraits.

While reading All the Colors We Are: The Story of How We Get Our Skin Color by Katie Kissinger, we learned the scientific process that gives everyone their skin color. We discussed that because everyone has melanin, a pigment that forms the shades of brown, we all have skin that is a shade of brown.

At the end of the activity, students learned that skin color is only “skin deep" and that we are all more similar than we are different.