Aixa Pérez-Prado

On this page you will find teaching activities for classrooms of diverse children. These activities use picture books in a way that promotes peace, values diversity, and creates a climate of empathy and understanding based on a foundation of peace linguistics. All of the activities that will be included on this page work for both language learners and native speakers and aim to encourage creativity, imagination and global competency.

Book: CITY FEET (Reycraft, 2023)
Written and Illustrated by: Aixa Pérez-Prado

DESCRIPTION: a day-in-the-life story, seen from a toddler’s view, showing in whimsical, colorful, and humorous illustrations—the legs and feet of a wide assortment of city dwellers as they walk, run, slide, glide, hop, and bop through the city. This rhyming picture book ultimately reveals that a city’s feet are as varied as the people and animals who live there. The collaged illustrations include the use of city maps from around the world, and the text interweaves several languages in its rhyme scheme, including Spanish, Portuguese, German, Arabic, Quechua, French, and Haitian Creole.
GLOBAL COMPETENCY
Valuing diversity, promoting peace
SDG 16: .Peace, Justice and Strong Institutions
CRITICAL/CREATIVE THINKING AND HABITS OF MIND
Thinking Flexibly, Finding Humor, Thinking Interdependently
MATERIALS
Art supplies, paper, scissors, crayons, markers or colored pencils.
STEPS
1.  Show the cover of City Feet and ask children to explain what is odd or different about it (characters are only seen from the waist down, maps are used as clothing). Have them  guess what they think the book is about based on the title and the characters on the cover, show the end papers and title page and have the children point out everything they notice. You can incorporate a See, Think, Wonder Thinking Routine here.
2.  Explain that this is a rhyming picture book about how people move around the city and a baby who is watching them all. Point out that the story has a pattern or beat. Practice a snap/clap/snap/clap pattern with the children and ask them to continue the beat as you read them the story.
3. Read the story another time with the children using their left arm as a surface or “road” and fingers on their right hand as legs/feet to act out each of the movements in the story that describe how people and animals move through the city (walking, gliding, hopping, shuffling, etc.). The children will pretend to be walking, hopping, etc., on their arm/road with their fingers/legs.
4. Have the children form a circle and act out all of the movements in a clockwise motion as you read the story a third time. First they will walk, then shuffle, then bounce, etc.
5.Brainstorm what other kinds of feet and movements they can imagine, either those seen in a city or from their imaginations. They can look through the book and point out which feet are actually found in cities, and which are usually not seen in a city (such as pig feet and frog feet).
6.Tell the children they will make their own City Feet bookmarks with art materials. Brainstorm what other kinds of feet they can imagine, either those seen in a city, or from their imaginations and encourage them to make their city feet as creative as they’d like.
7.Have them notice that in the book the pairs of feet on the different pages rhyme, such as, “hairy feet” and “scary feet.” Ask them if they can think of more rhyming pairs to make city feet with. You may give an example such as, “tricky feet,” “sticky feet.”
8.Have the children share their city feet when they’re finished.
9. Ask questions such as:
Why do people move in different ways?·     
What are other ways to move in a city?
What kinds of transportation help people move in cities?
Who are the  different people you find in a city?
How many different  languages do you find in City Feet and what are they?
What can you tell about the characters in City Feet based only on their feet and legs?
Can you find all the hidden hearts in the illustrations?
 Can you find the only place in the book where the whole baby is shown?

 Book: OUR WORLD: ARGENTINA (Barefoot Books, 2023)
Written by: Aixa Pérez-Prado       Illustrated by: Mariana Ruiz Johnson
DESCRIPTION: A fun and full of activity day in the life of a two mom and one toddler family in Buenos Aires, Argentina. The rhyming text takes us throughout the day from morning to night doing and seeing things that are part of a regular day in this vibrant city. The colorful illustrations feature the variety of sights, sounds, and smells that are found in the different neighborhoods of Buenos Aires including all kinds of transportation, open air markets, dancing in the street, playgrounds, carousels and more. In addition, the text integrates words in Spanish that children can learn, backmatter is included. GLOBAL COMPETENCY
Valuing diversity, gender equity
SDG 5: gender equality
CRITICAL/CREATIVE THINKING AND HABITS OF MIND
Thinking flexibly, Responding with wonderment and awe, Gathering data with all the senses
MATERIALS
cardboard box, cereal box or other, markers, construction paper, fabric and glue
STEPS
1.  Show a map or a globe and invite children to find Argentina. Give some hints if needed to help them locate continent and country. Point out Buenos Aires and explain that this is where the story takes place.
2.  Read through the board book several times and have children repeat the words in Spanish, pointing out the illustrations.
3. Do a See, Think, Wonder activity using a page such as the FERIA page (outdoor market). You can ask the following questions, providing modeling as needed:
SEE: What do you see? (give time for everyone to participate and keep encouraging more responses, these could include colors, shapes, objects, people, words and more)
THINK: What do you think about that? (they might think it is outside, there is a party or other. If kids are stuck give some modeling)
WONDER: What does it make you wonder? (creativity and imagination are the highest form of thinking, encourage children to wonder about what they see. Modeling could include, ‘I wonder what that food tastes like, or I wonder if that is a grandma, or I wonder if that man is yelling,…)
4. Have children choose their favorite page from the story and create an object that they could add to that page such as a building, person or other. Encourage them to notice the shapes and colors the illustrator used to try to copy her style. Alternatively, have children choose a character from the story and create a form of transportation to move around the city for that character with the art materials. They might create a scooter, car, train, or other invented form of transportation.
5. Once children have completed encourage them to present their artwork to one another and to add words as if it were a page in the story. Small groups might try combining their pieces for a new page in the story.
6. Access the internet to show scenes of actual Buenos Aires to children and discuss how the real world is different from illustrations in a book, and how it is similar. 
7. Have children describe other cities that they have visited or where they or their families are from and what would be in a picture book about that city.