Cultural Differences and Friendship: The Sandwich Swap

Book #1: The Sandwich Swap by: Queen Rania of Jordan Al Abdullah and Kelly DiPucchio

In the story, The Sandwich Swap, two girls are best friends. They do everything together. The only thing they do differently is the type of sandwich they eat at lunch. Lily loves to eat peanut butter sandwiches on loaf bread and Salma loves to eat hummus sandwiches on pita bread. Each girl believes that her sandwich is the best. This causes a conflict between the girls. They spend the next day mad at each other. They do not do anything together, including eating lunch together. They sit at separate lunch tables. The other children begin to notice the girls are mad at each other and they begin choosing sides. They call the girl on the opposing side names

and start throwing food at each other. After the food fight, they see all of the food mixed up. The girls begin to laugh and agree to be friends again. The next day, at lunch, they decide to try a bite of each others' sandwich. As it turns out Lily likes hummus sandwiches and Salma likes peanut butter sandwiches. They agree that both sandwiches taste good.

Activities to go along with The Sandwich Swap by: Queen Rania of Jordan Al Abdullah and Kelly DiPuccio

Ages: 2nd-3rd grades.

Subjects: Reading, Writing, and Language Arts

*Before doing any of the tasting parts of these activities, check for food allergies of the students*

For this story, I would make the activities last several days.

We would first read the book aloud together as a whole group. We would, then, have a group discussion about the things in the book, best friends, favorite foods, and how people like different things. I would make charts. One indicating who each child said that their best friend was. Another would be peanut butter verses hummus. For this chart, we would have to first taste both peanut butter and hummus. The students would then mark which one they liked best.

At the writing center, I would have the students write about their favorite and least favorite foods. I would also have them write about their best friend, who they are, why, and what they like to do together. In the play center, I would have different types of play foods that the children may or may not have seen before. I would have several copies of the book The Sandwich Swap, as well as books about different foods in the reading center. During small group, we would talk about different types of foods and how some people like foods that others do not

like.

Each day, we would reread the book aloud, summarize it, and talk about it. I would point out new words that the children may not know. The students can ask questions and talk between each other to learn about what each other likes and does not like. By using all of these activities together, the students will read about, write about, play with, and taste different foods. They will also learn new things about their classmates.

As a follow up activity, I would have the students bring in their favorite food. I would then allow each student to taste all of the foods. I would even bring in some different foods that the students may or may not have ever seen or tasted before. As we taste the different foods, we would have a group discussion about who likes what food. I would also point out how some like the food, and others did not. I would talk to them about how it is ok if someone does not like the food that you do. I would also talk to them about trying new foods because if you never try it, then you will never know if you are missing out on something that you like very much.