HEI Activity: Embrace the Culture
This is an activity that you can conduct at your kindergarten with children and their families to build a sense of school community.
Materials
Speaker & music
Plates, knife, fork, spoon, cups
Children’s portfolios
Preparations
- Utilize the cultural diversity in your own child group and ask the parents to prepare something typical from their culture for a family event. This can be music, food, activities, children's books or anything they wish to share.
- Collect a playlist of music before the event and create a schedule for the parent’s activities.
- Try to organize it in a way that at least two people bring some food so there’s something to serve. You can also bake something for the event if you wish.
Objectives for children
Get familiar with new cultures
Share the cultural customs of group members
Enjoy togetherness!
Objectives for teachers
Build a sense of community
Strengthen relationships with families
Encourage families to get to know each other's cultures
Practice organizing family events
Activity flow
- Put on the playlist of music that you gathered from parents while the families are arriving for the event. Welcome them and show them where to find refreshments.
- When everyone has arrived, share that you are embracing the different cultures of the children in the group! Explain the different dishes you are serving and who made them. Ask the cooks to explain more about what they made and where the food is from. You can also share that the playlist includes songs from different cultures.
- If there is a teacher at your center who is from another country or culture, you can ask them to start off the event by, for example, reading a book or singing a children’s song in their own language to make it more comfortable for the parents to present their activities.
- Let the parents present their activities. Then you can put the playlist back on and let the children and parents dance, eat and chat with each other.
- Try to make time to talk to all the families in turn and exchange some thoughts.
- Once the families appear ready to leave, thank them for participating and have one of the teachers at the door sign the children out for the day.
Note
Make sure there are opportunities for the children to play during the event with a teacher minding them so that the parents are able to talk to each other.
Tips for remote learning
Have a video call with the families and let the parents present activities or culturally significant objects to the other families. You can play a few songs from different cultures and encourage the children to dance along and maybe the parents too!
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