Age-Appropriate Anti-Racism Resources for 5 Year Olds: Parent Tested Ideas
The goldfish crumbs on my jeans were starting to stick to my leg when my 5-year-old Leo tugged my sleeve at the soccer playground last month. “Mom,” he said, loud enough for the other parents to glance over, “why does Mia’s skin look like chocolate and mine looks like pancake batter?” I mumbled something about different amounts of melanin, like I’d heard on a podcast, and nodded when he said that made sense before he ran off to chase the soccer ball. But as I sat there, I realized I’d gotten lucky with his quick attention span. I wanted better than offhand, fumbled answers—so I started looking for anti-racism resources that actually fit a 5-year-old’s brain, not a middle schooler’s.
I spent three nights scrolling Pinterest and parenting forums after that, and most of what I found was overwhelming. Full curriculums, books that talked about historical trauma that Leo would never be able to wrap his head around, listicles that linked to resources for all ages but didn’t sort out what actually worked for kids who still think the tooth fairy is real. One book I checked out from the library on a whim opened with a discussion of redlining, and by the second page Leo was asking if we could read his current favorite book about garbage trucks instead. I got the feeling a lot of people creating these resources forgot how short a 5-year-old’s focus is, and how abstract big political and historical concepts are for them.
I texted my friend who teaches preschool at a local public school to ask what she uses in her classroom, and she told me something that stuck with me immediately: 5-year-olds can understand difference, and they can understand fairness. They can’t understand systemic inequality, so the point of anti-racism work at this age isn’t to teach big policy or complex history—it’s to help them name difference without awkwardness, and understand that everyone deserves the same kindness and the same turn on the slide. That changed how I looked for resources. I stopped looking for curriculums and started looking for small, ordinary things that fit into our daily life.
The first resources she recommended were picture books, and not the heavy ones I’d been pulling off the library shelf. The Skin You Live In by Michael Tyler is the first one we fell in love with. It’s short, rhymes, and focuses entirely on what our skin lets us do—hug, run, play, paint—instead of any heavy history. It points out all the different shades of skin there are, and that’s it. I read it at bedtime two nights in a row, and halfway through Leo pointed to the page with a freckled kid and said “That’s Lila from my class!” No awkwardness, no big speech, just him connecting the book to his own life. Last Stop on Market Street by Matt de la Peña is another one that works perfectly. It’s just a story about a boy riding the bus with his grandma, seeing all kinds of people along the way. Leo doesn’t pick up on the subtle themes of class, but he notices the main character has darker skin than him, and that he’s just a regular kid who likes ice cream. That’s enough right now.
The best activity I found didn’t come from a fancy website, it was just a simple craft she does with her class every year: mixing paint to match your own skin tone. All you need is basic acrylic paint (white, yellow, red, brown), paper, and brushes. We did it on a rainy Saturday when we couldn’t go to the park, and it was so much easier than I expected. We each rolled up our sleeves and mixed until we got a shade that matched our own arm. Leo named his “peach goldfish” after his favorite snack, my older daughter named hers “honey toast”, and my sister who was visiting named hers “salted caramel”. We taped all three up on the fridge, and Leo still points them out to guests, noting that none of them are exactly the same. It sounds silly, but it’s way more effective than any book at teaching him that difference is normal, and that everyone’s skin is unique.
I also made one small change to Leo’s play area that didn’t cost much: I swapped our old set of wooden block people, which were all the same pale pink, for a $10 set that has different skin tones and hair textures. It’s not a lesson, just something he plays with every day, so he’s used to seeing different kinds of people in his imaginary games. We also watch a handful of kids shows that have diverse casts without making diversity the whole plot—Daniel Tiger has an episode where Daniel visits a friend’s house to celebrate Kwanzaa, and it’s just a normal day of eating cookies and playing, no big speech. It’s low effort, fits into our routine, and works.
Two weeks ago, we were in the grocery store checkout line, and a little boy a few months younger than Leo was standing in front of us with his grandma. When Leo got done poking the candy display, he leaned over and waved, and said “I have peach goldfish skin. You have orange popsicle skin. That’s cool.” The little boy waved back, and his grandma smiled. No awkwardness, no tension, just a kid noticing something and saying it nicely. That’s the whole point at this age, right?
I still get overwhelmed sometimes, when I see all the elaborate resources online that make me feel like I’m not doing enough. But for a 5 year old, who’s still learning to tie his shoes and remember to flush the toilet, big complicated lessons don’t stick anyway. What sticks is mixing paint on a rainy Saturday, reading a silly rhyming book at bedtime, playing with toys that look like all different kinds of people. I’m still looking for more good resources, especially as he gets older and starts asking harder questions. Right now, though, these small, simple things are working. We’re just taking it one question at a time.
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