Diversity Programming Resource

A diverse world is an enlightened world!

Please take some time in your programming to celebrate diversity in your day home with activities, song, play and stories. Involve your families;your families will be honoured and proud to share their culture with you! For example, if a child from in your home have their grandpa visiting from another place, invite them come in to share with the children.

As well, please share your culture to your day home children. Through food, pictures, games etc.

Learning about different cultures around the world helps to build patience, understanding and acceptance of our differences.

LITERACY

Make the Crayon Box

Using the poem above and this poem below. Explain to the children in your day home why it is so valuable we are all different. Here is an activity to make it more real.

With a black marker on white paper- Draw a large CRAYON SHAPE and make copies for the children to use

What You Do:

Read the poems and ask questions “What is this poem about” What do you think of the poem? Etc.

Next--The children draw their own portrait on the pre-made crayon patterns--when complete--have children cut out their crayon self-portrait.
The self-portraits are then placed in a "giant box of crayons" shape-- that you can create using construction paper.

The children’s pictures are lined up next to each other and in rows—just as crayons in a crayon box would be.

Hello in Different Languages

The goal of this activity is to heighten cross-cultural awareness, celebrate cross-cultural knowledge, and to say"hello" in many different languages.

  1. Visit the link to see how to say hello in different languages
  2. Make flashcards or have the children write one on a flashcard
  3. Practice reading them and saying the “hello” words

The Story of Your Name

  • The purpose of this activity is for each child to share with the other children the special meaning or reason for their name. Have the parents cooperate in this activity and write down the special meaning or reason for the child’s name to share with the other children.
  • This activity gives greater understanding of the child’s background and family to others and helps improve self-worth and respect with others

HELP CHILDREN SEE EACH OF US IS UNIQUE!

1. Use an inkpad to have each member make a thumbprint in the center of a piece of construction paper. Then, use a magnifying glass to examine the thumbprints. How are they alike? How are they different?

2. Next, have everyone use markers to add to and draw around the thumbprints to create unique thumbprint animals.

3. Discuss: Even though we’re all people, (or part of the same family) our fingerprints are different. And, each of us probably thought of and drew a different thumbprint imaginary animal. We don’t look alike or think

The "Talking Stone"
A preschool education circle time activity.

Often during circle time many preschoolers want to talk at once. One way to help children learn how to take turns is to use a visual clue. Teachers might try using a "talking stick" or "talking stone". This is a tradition with someNative Americans. Hold your 'stick' or 'stone' while you speak and then pass it on when it's time for another person to talk.

You can use a colorful rock or decorate your stick in a special way. This technique helps young children learn to respect the speaker and to wait and listen. Continue with this idea and soon the children will be reminding each other.

Multicultural Book

  • Multicultural activity which helps children appreciates different cultures and traditions.
  • Materials:construction paper or cardboard, old magazines, glue and ribbon.
  • Description:
    help children to cut out various pictures from magazines (oldNational Geographicones are great). Make a book by using construction paper or cardboard. Children glue pictures on to pages. Punch holes, and add ribbon to make the book. They can also dictate their thoughts about the pictures to you. Write their responses down on that particular page.
  • This activity is great for language recognition too!

Create A Multicultural Passport

What to Do:

  1. Make each child a booklet which can be used as the passport. Then have each child decorate the front of it.
  2. Next you will need to either take a photo of the child, or have them bring one from home to stick on the first inside page of their passport. Write their name beneath it.
  3. Each week choose acultureto base your lessons or activities on.
  4. At the end of the week give the child a picture of something from that culture to stick in their passport.
  5. At year's end you can then present all the kids with their filled passports and acertificatecongratulating them on becoming “World Travellers
  6. Description:This is a finger play to do with children during circle time.
  7. Materials:
    Just fingers. You can take the children's pictures with a digital camera and decorated your bulletin board with the poem and the children's pictures. The parents and children loved it!

I AM DIFFERENT: This is a fingerplay poem

DISPLAY IDEA: take the children's pictures with a digital camera and decorated my bulletin board with the poem and the children's pictures.

I am different from my head to my toes
(point to self then to head and toes)

I am different from my eyes to my nose
(point to self then eyes and nose)

I come from a place that is far and wide
(point to self then spread arms wide open)

A place where we all smile instead of cry
(act like you are tracing your lips into a smile
and bring hands down eyes as if you were crying)

I am very different as you can see
(point to self then at a friend)

But I still have a lot of love in me!
(point to self place hand over the heart
then hug yourself)

Diversity Books

10 Beautiful Indigenous Children’s Books to Add to Your Library


All the Colors We Are, by Kate Kissinger

Children are naturally curious about different skin colors and this book does a wonderful job of providing scientific explanations which are age-appropriate, including discussions about the function of melanin, correlations between the environment we live in and our skin color, and the role heredity plays in determining our skin color. This story was chosen as recommended literature by the Parent Council for its use of photography and engaging language.All the Colors We Arehelps children understand why we may be so much alike and yet physically different - all at the same time!

Black is Brown is Tan, by Arnold Adoff

Touted by the publisher as being the first children's book to ever feature an interracial family, this poem was first made into a story in 1973. The contemporary version features vivid watercolor pictures depicting a warm and loving multicultural family embracing their own differences with the chorus:

black is brown is tan

is girl is boy

is nose is face

is all the colors of the race

Whoever You Are, by Mem Fox

Written by popular children's author, Mem Fox, this story brings home the message that in many ways, we are all alike - no matter the color of our skin, the language we speak or they type of home we live in. According to her own website (memfox.com), Mem Fox wrote the story after thinking, "We have to get to the kids, while they’re young. Teach them about the similarities between the peoples of the world, not the differences.”

How My Parents Learned to Eat, by Ina R. Friedman

In this book, a little girl recounts the story of how her Japanese mother and her American father overcame the cultural differences stemming from the type of utensils they used to eat with. When they first met, the girl’s father was embarrassed because he did not know how to eat with chopsticks, while her mother was worried because she did not know how to eat with a knife and fork. Eventually, the couple found common ground by agreeing to use both, and the story ends with the narrator explaining that this has shaped the eating habits for their family - some nights they eat with chopsticks and other nights they eat with a knife and fork. Most important, however, is when the little girls explains that for her this arrangement is "natural.”

This story is one of the preschool books about diversity that can easily springboard into a discussion about the children's own family customs, how they were shaped and how they might be similar to or different from the customs of other families.

Stinky the Bulldog, by Jackie Valent

Stinky is an adorable little bulldog who finds, after moving to a new neighborhood, that he has trouble making friends because of the unintended connotation of his unique name. Through this story, children will learn that one should not judge others simply on outwardly appearances, but instead strive to accept people (or dogs!) who are different than they are. In the end, Stinky learns that a true friend is one that likes you for who you are on the inside.

Giraffes Can't Dance- A great book for teaching diversity and acceptance. This blog also offers a link with great activities for teaching diversity, acceptance, and bully prevention

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MATH

Counting with Chopsticks

an activity for fine motor skills that could be used for counting. Have a pair of chopsticks for each child and small objects that are easy to pick up such as cotton balls, small pom poms etc. Have each child count as they pick up the objects. For younger children have the chopsticks that are together already.

Counting in Different Languages

Have the children practice counting in a different language. Click on this link on You tube for help

MANCALA: AN ANCIENT CULTURAL MATH GAME

SCIENCE

Apple Activity
Have two apples, one red and one green. Ask the children to describe how the two apples are the same and how they are different. Then cut the two apples in half. Show the children that even though the skin color is different, the two apples are both the same on the inside, just like people.

Egg Experiment

Island Volcano

Explain to your children how many of the island countries (such as Japan) were formed by volcanoes then make a volcano. By forming clay around a baby food jar. Then put baking soda in the jar and pour red colored vinegar in it

You can also make lava (like play dough) for your children to play with by mixing one-part water with two-part cornstarch and then adding food coloring.

ART

Family Tree:

Have each child make their own family tree to display in the day home. It can be as simple or has complex that suits the age of the child.

Pumpkin Globes:

Here is a great idea to use with the leftover pumpkins from Halloween.

If your day home children are smaller. You can cut out the shapes of the continents for them on separate paper and they can colour them different colours and tape them on.

Instructions

Materials needed:
- printed continents stencils (stencil 1,stencil2), cut out stencils
- pumpkin (8-12 inch tall)
- paintbrushes
- blue & green acrylic paint
- Sharpie markers
Wash pumpkin with soap, dry it well. Paint pumpkin blue, allow drying.

With a pencil, draw the Equator, then using the stencils, draw each continent. Antarctica is missing, because it would be placed on the bottom and would not be seen at all. Make sure to explain this to your child. Older children might want to try to draw freehand, using a globe for reference. Paint continents green.
Allow to dry. With a Sharpie marker, label continents and oceans and go over the Equator again.

GLOBE MOBILES

Materials needed:
- printedstencil 1,stencil 2(click for the stencils)
- cardboard (cereal box)
- white craft glue
- sand
- paintbrushes
- blue paint
- string or ribbon
Cut out earth circles, trace one of the circles on cardboard. Cut it out.

Paint the areas of water blue. Allow it to dry. Paint glue on the continents and sprinkle sand on it. Allow glue to dry. Glue the two continent circles to the cardboard, so the cardboard is sandwiched between them. Punch a hole in the top and thread ribbon or string through.

Diversity Paper Chains: Make paper chains with construction paper that represent different children’s coloured skin. Link them together to teach toddlers and preschoolers about multiculturalism

Kite Art- From Japan
Cut out a kite shape and have each child decorate it with paint, glitter, fabric, crayons, or whatever you can come up with.
Children can take one noodle from each color, dip it in glue and place it on a piece of paper to create a rainbow.

African Necklaces Plates – From East Africa

Ornaments are worn in most African cultures and often represent a person's level of wealth. Lots of jewelry is made with valuable objects like gold, shells and beads. Children can create their own African collar like the ones worn by the Yoruba tribe of East Africa, to show off their prized possessions and personal style

What You Need:

  • Paper plate
  • Markers
  • Yarn
  • Red or Gold Paint
  • Scissors
  • Pencil
  • Colored straws
  • beads

What to Do:

1. Create a collar out of a paper plate by cutting through one side and cutting out a large circle in the center.

2. Using a ruler and pencil, draw a grid around the collar.

3. Have the preschool children Color the grid in with bright markers.

5. Have older children cut the colored drinking straws into small pieces, and cut several lengths of yarn as well, each about a foot long. Having slightly different lengths will make the collar more interesting.

6. String the beads and pieces of drinking straws onto the pieces of string, and fasten the ends to they stay on.

7. Carefully hot glue the ends of the strings to the bottom edge of the collar, about an inch apart.

8. Hot glue remaining pieces of the beads and colored straws around the collar of the collar.

Now child can wear his Yoruba collar necklace for all to see!

PAPER LANTERNS – From China

  • Colored paper (construction paper or gift wrapping)
  • Scissors
  • Glue, tape, or a stapler

/ Fold a rectangular piece of paper in half, making a long, thin rectangle.
/ Make a series of cuts (about a dozen or more) along the fold line. Don't cut all the way to the edge of the paper.
/ Unfold the paper. Glue or staple the short edges of the paper together.
/ Cut a strip of paper 6 inches long and 1/2 inch wide. Glue or staple this strip of paper across one end of the lantern - this will be the handle of the lantern.
/ Optional: Make a lot of lanterns and string them along a length of yarn. Decorate your room!

Dream Catchers

Materials Needed

  • paper plate
  • scissors
  • paint
  • yarn
  • feathers
  • beads
  • hole punch
  • stickers or markers (optional)

INSTRUCTIONS

  1. Cut a hole in the center of the plate, leaving about two inches of edging. Punch holes around the inside edge.
  2. Paint the remainder(rim) of the plate. This will serve as your base.
  3. Tie a piece of yarnto the end of a feather while the plate is drying. The length of the yarn will determine how far down your dream catcher hangs.
  4. String beads onto the yarn. When you’re finished, tie several knots at the loose end of the string to act as a stopper and secure the beads in place. (Tip: Roll a piece of tape around the tip of the yarn, like an aglet on a shoelace, before starting. This helps young kids slide the beads on, saving time—and frustration!)
  5. Repeat step 4until you have your desired number of strands.
  6. When the paint has dried, randomly string your remaining yarn through the holes bordering the plate. Add a few beads or stickers for extra decoration if you like.
  7. Punch one holefor each beaded strand of yarn at the bottom of the plate and tie on your strands of beaded, feathered yarn.

When you’re finished, hang the dream catcher the child can put it on their bedpost or on a wall in their room. If they have a bad dream, simply blow the nightmare into the dream catcher.

Below is a great cooperative diversity art project!