Anti-Racism Resources for 5 Year Olds: Practical, Kid-Approved Ideas I Tried
Last month, I was sitting on a splintered wooden bench at our neighborhood playground, picking half-crushed Goldfish crackers out of the bottom of my tote, when my 5-year-old daughter Lila came barrelling over. A smudge of vanilla ice cream streaked her cheek, and she pointed back to the slide where a new little girl with beaded braids was waiting. “Mom,” she said, loud enough that half the playground could probably hear, “why is her skin darker than mine?”
I froze. I’d been meaning to get around to talking about race with Lila, to find good resources that fit her age, but I’d put it off—figured she was too little, figured I had more time. I mumbled something about “everyone is just made different” and hustled her back to play, but the whole walk home I felt guilty. I didn’t want to brush the question off, but I also didn’t know how to talk about it with a kid who still thinks the moon follows our car. I went home that night and spent an hour scrolling, looking for resources that weren’t too scary, too boring, or too grown-up for a 5 year old.
Most of the first stuff I found was way off. There was a beautiful hardcover about MLK that talked about segregation and protests, but when I flipped through it, half the text was paragraphs that would go right over Lila’s head, and the other half was about things that would give her nightmares about people being mean for no reason. I tried a couple picture books that were all “we’re all the same on the inside,” which left me cold—Lila can clearly see we’re not all the same, so why pretend otherwise? I almost gave up, then texted my old roommate who teaches pre-K at a local public school, and she gave me a list of small, simple things that actually worked way better than any of the fancy resources I found online.
First, the books. She told me to skip the heavy, issue-driven books and stick to stories that normalize difference first, instead of dropping a lecture on kids. The first one we checked out from the library was The Skin You Live In—it’s short, rhymes, compares skin tones to different cookie and coffee flavors, and Lila actually asked me to read it three nights in a row. It doesn’t get into all the hard history, it just says skin is what holds you in, it comes in every shade, and it’s nothing to be scared of or quiet about. We also love Last Stop on Market Street, which is just a story about a boy riding the bus with his grandma, noticing all the different people on the bus, and talking about how beautiful all kinds of lives are. No lectures, just a fun story Lila can follow, and it leaves space for us to chat about what we see after we’re done reading.
The biggest surprise was that activities work way better than books for 5 year olds, since they learn by doing anyway. She suggested the skin color mixing paint activity, which I was skeptical of because I hate mess, but it was actually way easier than I thought. I just grabbed a pack of cheap washable tempera paint, squeezed out white, peach, brown, and black onto a paper plate, and told Lila to mix the color that matched her arm. She ended up mixing three different shades for her face and her freckled arms, then we painted quick portraits of me, her dad, our neighbor Mr. Lee who grew up in Seoul, and our mail carrier who has really dark brown skin. It took 20 minutes, there’s still a faint brown smudge on my kitchen table that won’t come out, but Lila still talks about it. Last week when we saw our mail carrier, she pointed out to me that his paint color was the darkest one we mixed, and that it was “super pretty.” That’s way more than any book could have taught her, I think.
I also found free, low-effort resources that fit right into our daily routine. Sesame Street has 2-minute YouTube clips about talking about skin color that are perfect. Lila already begs for 10 minutes of Sesame Street after breakfast, so I just swap one of her usual Elmo clips for one of these every few days. Elmo talks to a little girl about how her skin is brown and his is orange, and everyone’s skin is different, and it’s super simple, no big confusing words.
The biggest thing I learned from all this is that for 5 year olds, anti-racism resources don’t have to be big, expensive, or full of heavy history. 5 year olds don’t need to learn the entire history of systemic racism right now—what they need is to feel comfortable talking about difference, instead of thinking it’s something you can’t mention. I used to think I had to have all the answers, but now if Lila asks a question out of the blue, I just answer it simply, no big speech. If she points out someone’s different hair or skin, I don’t shush her, I just confirm what she sees: “Yep, that’s beautiful curly hair, isn’t it?” Shushing her just makes her think difference is something bad or rude to talk about, which is the opposite of what we want.
It’s still not perfect. Last week, Lila asked me why our neighbor speaks Spanish to her kids and I speak English, and I gave her a simple answer, but I know there’s more we can talk about as she gets older. I still forget to pull out the books some weeks, and most of our conversations happen randomly at the grocery store or playground, not during some planned lesson. But the small stuff works better than I ever expected. I don’t need a perfect curriculum to teach my 5 year old that all people are valuable, no matter what they look like. I just need simple resources that meet her where she is, and be willing to talk when she asks questions. That’s enough, for now.
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