Culture
Calendar
I chose the
Culture Calendar idea because I totally loved the idea of making sure every
child, family, and cultural celebrations get recognition. I like the idea from
the book but I want to add some variation to it. It might be best to just have
one huge calendar on the wall so there is plenty of room like this one:
At the
beginning of the year the teacher can send out a flyer to each parent ask have
them fill out the different celebrations and holidays their family/culture
celebrates. Each month the children can gather around the calendar. The teacher
can ask them what events/celebrations they know of that are going on for the month.
The children can tell the teacher and figure it out as a group and the teacher will
place them on the calendar. The teacher can then check the parent’s surveys and
fill in anything the children did not remember or know. Then each child may go
up and put a tiny picture of them self in the calendar square to show that their
family celebrates that occasion. All the other children’s pictures that are not
on the calendar for that month may use their picture to decorate a shape or the
border of the calendar for that month. The children can also share with the
class how their family celebrates each event. (The children may be encouraged
to ask their parents about it first for a better idea.) It would be best to
have this gathering around the calendar at the beginning of each month.
The
materials needed for this is a very large cork or white board with squares on
to make all the days on a calendar. Pictures of the children should be taken
and made copies of to be placed on the board if/when needed. Push pins may also
be needed or tape to attach papers explaining the events and the children’s
pictures. This calendar should be placed in an open location for large group
time so the entire class has the space to gather around the area to look and
enjoy it. There should be cut out paper shapes of various things around the
calendar to use for décor or for the children who have no celebrations going on
that month still have a fun place to add their picture to.
This
activity will help children live happily and cooperatively in a diverse world
by realizing and celebrating the many other cultures in the world. Also, this activity
will encourage children to respect other cultures by showing them how
interesting and exciting many different kinds of events and celebrations can
be. It will also increase children’s ability to interact, talk and play with
people who are different from them because they will want to ask questions and
be excited to put their picture(s) up on the board.
Here a few
examples of some books that show different celebrations and dress from other
cultures.
“A New Year’s
Reunion” Is about a girl and her father doing all the festivities of Chinese
New Year.
“What We
Wear” Is a book that shows pictures of people from all over the world wearing
every day, work, school, and celebratory clothes.
You can also
add birthdays to this calendar. I realize some children might have multiple
events a month, they could possibly put up more than one picture or only choose
to share her favorite with the class. Also there could be a guest speaker that
comes in that months if there is an extremely important even for that specific
culture that month.
This activity
is aimed for young children. This is best for their age because it deals with
concepts they can understand. For example; it will show how people are similar
and how people are different. It also shows how we can learn about the daily
life of people we know. It very clearly shows that families live in different
ways and there are many different people live in our community. (S. York pg.
188) These concepts are extremely important for children to grasp so they will
learn to recognize and questions the bias they will see growing up.
This is an
appropriate theme because it shows the children about the many different cultures
are out there. We want them to learn, recognize and enjoy information and
events from other countries and cultures so they have a greater awareness and
an open mind growing up. Our society tends to not recognize other cultures and
especially their many different celebrations. This is an appropriate way to
present them to the children and show them how many different people and
cultures are in our world. It is also a good time to do when they are young so
they will be in a safe environment to ask any questions they may have about
their classmates’ cultures and backgrounds.
In
conclusion, I believe my culture calendar would be a wonderful success and an
essential part of an Anti-bias curriculum. The idea can use some tweaks and
improvements, but those will show through trial and error and doing more
research. I also wanted to mention if this calendar is going up in a classroom
where there are not many children from different cultures then it would be
wonderful to do research and still put them on the calendar and to tell the
children about each one.
