"By concentrating on global activities, the educator helps the children to develop a global consciousness.  It won't happen in a day or a week, and may not be sudden or dramatic.  But little comments, tentative first friendships, and physical expressions of sharing will show the educator that the children are on their way to developing a multicultural perspective." Maureen Cech, from her book "Globalchild (Multicultural Resources For Young Children)"

 
Stormie's Personal Notes:

After meeting Dr. Jane Hodges, who had great influence on me, and who is a professional on the subject of multicultural education for preschoolers, and as I'm continually educating myself, I've learned and strongly believe in these guidelines:

*1. Multicultural education for preschoolers can be so much more than introducing a holiday.  Activities need to be in some kind of context: Who are the people who celebrate this holiday?  Where do they live?  How are they like me?  How are they different?  And so on.  And even if my local library is my only resource (and it has been for me), I can still begin to present activities to the children.  They can be as simple as stories or Group Time discussions.  As Ms. Cech says in her quote above, "It won't happen in a day."  All that matters is that I'm trying.
*2. If I plan a lesson of focusing on a particular culture, I need to "model" the embracement of people differences and teach children to not just "accept," but to cherish those differences rather than to think them "strange" or somehow weird and abnormal.  But I also need to discuss what we have in common.
*3. Focusing on a theme isn't enough.  I need to make multiculturalism a part of everyday life in my classroom -- always making a connection to this great big world of people.  Here are a few ways to do that:

 

*Make sure my classroom has a variety of cultures represented.  In the Play Kitchen, for example, provide dark skinned as well as light skinned dolls, chopsticks as well as forks, kimonos as well as skirts for dress-up, etc   *Place magazine pictures of children from around the world in a photograph album and keep it in the language center.  Or, we can create mini albums of various countries using those little albums that Wal-Mart always puts into packages of developed photographs   *Make sure that year-round wall posters reflect various cultures and skin colors   *When doing projects using colors of paper and crayons/markers to represent people, use a variety of "skin" colors   *Provide books in the children's library that represent other cultures, and even books written in other languages.  The children can't read them (nor can I), but still, it introduces the children to other languages.   *Do my homework: Examples: Learn, then teach songs in other languages to the children.  Learn, then teach counting to ten in other languages; Visit my library for great books, posters, etc..

 

August/September Introductory Mini Geography/Multi-Cultural Ed Lesson:
Purchase a globe for your classroom.  Introduce children to "the world."  Point out areas of water (oceans) and areas of land (continents).  Continents are divided into "countries," and countries are where everyone in the entire world lives.  Show the children where they live (country/state).  Talk about how much fun we're going to have at school this year because we're going to learn about where other children live in the world, and how they live (name and/or show examples: "Some children dress like you, some don't, some children talk like you, others talk differently, etc.").
You could begin this introduction with a picture of space showing Earth as one of the planets, and talk about how, as far as we know, Earth is the only place where people live.

For each lesson this year, when focusing on and/or introducing another country, culture, or a part of culture (clothing, music, etc), here are a few starting point tips:
*Provide related pictures, posters, and books (from the library)
*Remind children that just as our country has many cultures, so do other countries.  For example, should you choose to introduce children to the nomadic families in Afghanistan, it's important to note that not EVERYONE there is a nomadic farmer (explain on a preschooler level of understanding, of course)
*On a globe (or world map), place a sticker star on the U.S.  Then with each new country introduced, pinpoint its location using tiny sticker dots.  Of course, being very young, the children will enjoy turning the globe, but it also exposes them to pre-geography.  
Teach the children how to turn the globe and make a classroom rule about how it's not to be used as a "spinning" toy.  (If possible, keep a toy top in the fine motor center so that children can be re-directed to that area when wanting to "spin" something.)

Favorite Book:
Two Eyes, a Nose, and a Mouth, by Roberta Grobel Intrater: Through this delightful book of real photographs, children celebrate the differences and similarities of eyes, noses, and mouths from around the world.

 

Although I've made adaptations, the resource for some of the activities in the multicultural sections of my website are from my favorite multicultural ed planning guide: "Globalchild (Multicultural Resources For Young Children)" by Maureen Cech.  Her book offers so much more that I'd like to share but I don't feel it would be appropriate to do so without permission.  But you should be able to get her book at most educational bookstores.

Please share your ideas too:

From Melissa, Auburn, Alabama:
I found this book in the Chinaberry catalog for kids.  It is called "Whoever You Are," written by Mem Fox and  illustrated by Leslie Staub. It  focuses on the ways people all over the world are very much alike, in spite of the surface differences in our lives.  The Chinaberry Book Service, Inc (who recommends this book for ages 3-6) has this to say: "Want some goosebumps? Or, at least do you want to be touched deeply in a way that makes you know you've just read something True and Important, something that everyone everywhere, young and old, should know?  Then, here.  WHOEVER YOU ARE is just one of those books.  Not patronizing, not pedantic, this treasure is a gift from its concept, to its words, to its art.  There are children all over the world.  Their skin may be different from yours, as might their homes, their schools, their land, their lives, their words.  But inside their hearts they are just like you --- smiling, laughing, and hurting."  Melissa goes on to say: "The pictures show children from a variety of ethnic backgrounds, and if you look carefully, you get to watch them grow up through the story.  REALLY a special book!  My own children have LOVED this book and my little one chose this as his bedtime story for MONTHS.  The illustrations are as special as the text."

From Deborah Denzel:
I teach 4 yr olds in a Pre-School attached to a Primary School in Sydney, Australia.  My class has had children from all over the World, with up to 16 different home languages at any one time.  Our most fun with this has been to use the children's photos, faces cut very tiny and placed on a large world map.  Ours was a shower curtain with the map already printed upon it from Scholastics (the book club people).  It was then used by children and parents alike to share bits of their heritages with the class.  Whenever we get a child who is unsure of English, I get an adult to help me with some simple words in their language, like come and play, go to toilet, hello & goodbye.  I write these down for me phonetically, make a huge list around the room with the data on it then we have a few words for communicating with the child.  I ALWAYS insist on learning how to pronounce the child's name as the parents say it.  I NEVER try to make it sound like a familiar name, it is the child's identity and I don't have the right to change it.

Jules, from Bryan, Texas sent me this absolutely fabulous idea:
Hi Stormie!  I'd like to share with you an idea I thought of and my kids LOVED it!  I introduced "Children Around the World" in September and each month we will learn about a new country.....in September we followed up with Mexico, October Brazil, etc.  But to start off, I followed some of the ideas in your website and added this craft to help them further understand.  I bought 5 inch styrofoam balls for each child.  They painted them blue and green for the "world."  They colored a picture of children from around the world which I copied from "A Trip Around The World" found in a teacher supply store (but any picture of children from around the world will do......even magazine cutouts from National Geographic.)  They pasted the children around their world they painted and I used a wire coat hanger to thread yarn up through the center to hang from our ceiling.  (One parent shared the idea with me of using her child's "world" as a Christmas Ornament.)  The children really loved
this craft!
Extension to the activity above from Laurie Firpo, Childhaven Preschool, Brentwood, California:
Hi Stormie, We made the "styrofoam ball worlds" mentioned on your website.  We then hung them in the window with a sign that said "Our Small Worlds."  We also sang "It's a Small World After All."  After learning about a "globe," the children later were able to show me where our state of California is located.....and where Santa lives.   Here are the words to that popular Disney song in case you can't quite remember them:

It's a Small World After All                                                         "It's a world of laughter, a world of tears  It's a world of hope and a world of fears  There's so much that we share that it's time we're aware  it's a small world after all...                                                      (Chorus)  It's a small world after all, it's a small world after all,  It's a small world after all, it's a small, small world.                                                         There is just one moon and one golden sun  And a smile means friendship to everyone  Though the mountains divide and the oceans are wide, It's a small world after all."                                              (Repeat chorus)

From Heide & Gwen, in Wyoming: Sharing how they introduced China to the children in their class:
Creative Drama: This would be a great way to introduce each new culture.  "We set up a pretend 'airplane ride' for the children using chairs, posters (from a travel agency), pretend tickets, etc.  We showed the children where China is on a globe and talked about how long it would take to get there.  Then we played some Chinese music for them to listen to while 'traveling.'  (In fact, we often used that same music for background sound on other days during our China unit.  It came from an Encarta 1998 CD)."

Note about website from Stormie: Very often throughout my monthly pages, you will see underlined single letters.  For example, see in the paragraph above that the a in "airplane" is underlined.  I do this because the letter for the month is Aa.  I've always liked reminding myself when particular words reinforce my monthly letter(s) of the alphabet.  For example, if I were to do the above activity with the children, I could remind them that, "Oh, by the way, airplane starts with our letter of the month.  Let's say it together."  So, throughout my September pages, you may often see Aa words underlined.  You may think it strange that I even sometimes underline the first letters of people's names (book authors and illustrators, especially).  Why?  Because it reminds us that when we read a new book to the children, we can practice letter recognition and have a mini phonics lesson by sounding out the letters in the names of the book's creators.

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Click here on this map if you need to remind yourself where the world's continents are located. (Don't worry, you won't get lost.  You can return to this page from that one by hitting your "Back" button.)

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World Celebrations:
Please click on the link below to review world celebrations (I will add more of them over time so check back every now and then).  Don't worry, you shouldn't get lost if you go there now as you will be able to link back to this September page from there.

WORLD HOLIDAYS, CELEBRATIONS, AND FESTIVALS

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Reminder from Stormie: If you would like to begin collecting ALL my current classroom ideas (each on a 4 x 6" index card), as well as new ones that I create, you can do so by ordering my "Activity Cards."  Click here to check them out.

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