View

• Clifford - "A New Friend"
  There's a new dog in town -- and he only has three legs. The dogs learn to accept someone who is different. Clifford, Cleo, and T-Bone really like KC, but they feel uncomfortable and unsure of how to act around him.

Do in Class

• Dragon Tales: Accepting ones own differences - Compare dragons to learn that everyone is different in some way.
• Dragon Tales: The Greatest Show in Dragon Land - Read Harry and Willy and Carrothead by Judith Caseley with your students and then ask them to tell a story including these characters.
• Dragon Tales: A New Friend - Have your child create a treasure map and then to think about a new route to the treasure that would assist someone in a wheelchair.
• Maya and Miguel: Empathy and Art - Understand and appreciate others who are different from oneself, model empathy and break down stereotypes through art and language.
• Mister Rogers' Neighborhood: Paper People in a Row - Make a string of paper people and then decorate each person differently. Discuss how people are all the same underneath even though they may look different on the outside.
• Mister Rogers' Neighborhood: We Are All Alike...And Different - Use pictures, magazines, and discussion to help children learn to feel comfortable with people who have disabilities.
• Religion and Ethics Newsweekly: Living with Special Needs - Gain an understanding of what it means to live with limiting physical conditions, such as impaired hearing, and other disabilities, such as dyslexia.
• Sagwa: Extended Activity #108: Tribal Cats - Encourage questions to increase student understanding of differences.
• ZOOM: You Can Help People with Disabilities - Learn how you can help people with disabilities.
• ZOOM: Resources for ZOOMteamers - View a booklist about helping people with disabilities.

Read

• Susan Laughs
  By Jeanne Willis and Tony Ross
  Published September 2000 by Henry Holt & Company, Inc.
  Susan laughs, sings rides, and swings. She gets mad, sad, and frightened. She is good. She can be bad. The only difference between Susan and other boys and girls is that Susan needs a wheelchair, a need that is revealed only in the last illustration.
• Tiger's Fall
  By Molly Bang
  Published March 2003 by Yearling Books
  Lupe is fearless. She loves to ride El Diablo, her father's black stallion. She even dares to climb a huge fig tree the villagers believe is haunted. When she falls from the tree, she is paralyzed from the waist down. Angry and full of self-pity, Lupe refuses to believe that she, that anyone who is disabled, can be happy, until she helps another suffering creature.

*As most PBS children's programs offer one year extended taping rights for teachers, please feel free to tape them now and save them for use in your classroom during the school year.