Depending on your workshop format choose one of the following options:

• Ask families to play Monopoly or an -opoly type of game at home before they come to this workshop
• Ask families to come an hour early (before the workshop officially starts) to play a little Monopoly

In these workshops, we’re getting curious about ourselves and our world. It takes a lot of bravery to share who we are with each other, to talk about our feelings and to admit when we don’t know something or made a mistake. It can even take bravery to ask questions.

Let’s do our best to respect each other’s bravery, identities, and experiences.

Click through the slideshow to read guidelines to help us do that, or click here to watch a video that explains our group agreements.

In this game, participants will wear a box full of ping-pong balls around their waists. Their job will be to get as many ping-pong balls out of the box as possible in one minute (without using their hands, of course). You can set up this game to run in teams or individually.

• Cut two parallel slits in the base of an empty rectangular tissues box.
• Slide a belt through the two slits.
• Put 10 ping-pong balls into each box.
• Attach the belt to the participant’s waist so that the box is on the participant’s lower back.
• Set the timer for one minute and allow participants to try to get balls out of the box.
• Count the number of balls remaining in each participant’s box.

Because of the difficult nature and need for sensitivity of the content in this lesson, this portion of the workshop may be best done within racial affinity groups. If that isn’t possible, consider having families do this learning on their own at home, or in separate family groups with their own devices, allowing parents & caregivers to lead the material with their kids.

• For this activity, we created an interactive experience using the AhaSlides Presentation platform. It’s similar to a “Kahoot!” The presenter will start a “game” using prepared slides and content, and participants join using their devices. Throughout the presentation, there are opportunities for participants to respond to questions, polls, etc. We found that kids were excited to have a chance to share their ideas in this way. AhaSlides allows free use of this platform for up to 7 devices. If you have more than that for your group, you can purchase a one-time upgrade to include more devices for a nominal fee. If you’d like to use the content via AhaSlides, go to this link to make a copy of the presentation for yourself.
• You can also view the animated slides via a Canva presentation, and verbally share ideas rather than through devices. However, the formatting may be distorted on some devices – check that first.
• Or, simply present a pdf version of the content, though of course there will be no animations.

Throughout the presentation, we’ve woven readings of selections from the book Born on the Water by Nikole Hannah-Jones and
Renée Watson, illustrated by Nikkolas Smith. We love this book, and are so grateful for the truthful counternarrative these authors created. Please carefully preview the entire book before proceeding to ensure that it is developmentally appropriate for your audience.

Prepare your materials ahead of time.

• The boxes (you’ll want one per family group): You can use any box that is at least 8.5×11 when lying flat. We found an open-top shallow box like those used to contain aluminum drink cans easy to work with, and are thin enough so that strong magnets still work. Flip the box so it is upside down – the flat 8.5×11 bottom of the box facing up; the open part of the box facing down. Use scissors to cut out almost the whole side wall of one of the long sides of the box like this. Once the box is upside down again, you should be able to slide your hand under the box.
• The magnet wands: Attach a magnet to the end of a long craft stick with tape. Wrap the tape around the magnet several times so it is tightly attached.
• Leave the box upside down. Place a steel-ringed plastic chip on top of the box. Then hide the magnetic wand under the box.

This activity can be significantly abridged depending on how much time you have.

1. Ask kids to come around the table where you have the box set up. Tell them that you’re a wizard and you are going to move the chip around without touching it. Be as dramatic as you like – that makes it more fun for everyone!
2. Put your hand under the box. At first, act like you are trying hard to make it move with your mind. Come up with some silly antics to try to get your magic to work again. Try again, this time grasping the craft stick under the box this time. Then use the magnet on the craft stick to guide the chip to different spots on the box.
3. Create a distraction so you can remove the wand from the box. Then invite children to try to move the chip themselves by placing their hand under the box.
4. Very quickly kids will likely guess that there’s a magnet involved. Reveal the magnetic wand when it makes sense in your situation.
5. Then invite kids to play with magnets at their tables. You can just set out lots of different kinds of magnets and let them explore, or set up magnets as shown below, or both.

Once everyone has had a chance to explore magnets, call everyone back for a discussion.

• Invite kids to share their observations from playing with the magnets.
• Ask whether anyone could see the magnetic force while it was occurring. Ask whether anyone could feel the magnetic force.
• What do you think of with the word “force?” What is a force?
• Talk about how some forces are visible…like if you are playing on a swing and you can see that your grown-up pushes you.
• Talk about how some forces are invisible.

Now let’s try a maze challenge!

How did that feel? Was that easy or hard?

What are some challenges that YOU face as you go through your life?

Next, we are going to make the maze more challenging.

Flip the box upside down and attach some magnets to the box using strong tape.

Do you think it will be easier or harder to move the chip through the maze with these extra magnets on the bottom? Why or why not?

We can use this activity as an analogy to understand how America’s history of racism affects people.

The first time we did the maze, it was somewhat challenging to get through the maze without touching any of the black lines. There were lots of twists and turns to get through – it wasn’t a straight, easy path.

We can imagine that the first scenario represents the path of a white person through life. Many white people face challenges in their everyday lives.

The second time that we did the maze (when the bar magnets were taped underneath the box) we were blocked from traveling through the maze at times. We could feel the pull of the magnetic forces and sometimes we didn’t have control of where our chip moved. How did that make you feel?

The magnets under the box represent different kinds of racism that many Black, Indigenous, and People of Color face. One of the magnets could represent the effects of historical racism like we talked about before. One of the magnets could represent the effects of bias and stereotyping. One of the magnets could represent the effects of interpersonal racism like microaggressions. What other types of racism can you think of?

We can imagine that a BIPOC person is represented the second time we did the maze, because Black, Indigenous, and People of Color in America live with the invisible forces of all these kinds of racism. People who are white do not have these invisible forces tugging or pushing them. Everyone faces challenges in life. There are twists and turns and unexpected problems in everyone’s journeys. But if you are white in America, you don’t have the hidden forces of racism creating obstacles on your journey.

What do you think about this analogy? Did you learn anything? What other analogies can you think of that could help you understand how racism causes challenges to Black, Indigenous, and other People of Color that white people do not have to deal with?

We’re going to play a Curiosity Lab version of BINGO. These BINGO cards will be full of pictures & words that stand for ideas we’ve learned during our time together.

First, use the printed labels to make your BINGO card. Put one sticker on each colored square. Put them in any order you like so that your card is not the same as someone else’s. You won’t need all the labels – there are 20 stickers and only 16 spots on the card, so make sure you use your favorites!

As you call out the various phrases and pictures, ask participants to share what they remember and learned from those symbols.

In the BINGO game, we used a bunch of symbols to represent different ideas we’ve worked with and learned in these workshops.

Every day we come across lots of symbols. What are some symbols can you think of that you see or use every day?

Sometimes symbols are practical and help us find our way, like when you’re looking for a restroom. But we also use symbols to show our values and ideas. Can you think of any symbols like that?

Throughout these workshops, you and your family have shown that you’re open to learning about race and racism. You’ve shown that you’re on a journey of understanding race. You’ve shown that you value human beings and that you are working to be more antiracist. Now you are going to get a chance to choose a way to represent that by creating your own symbol or an antiracist message.

If you like and you have time, get inspiration from various artists. Check out potential resources on the curriculum landing page.