Multicultural Education: Lessons from a Serial Globetrotter
Today I have the privilege of sharing wonderful multicultural education resources from teacher, author, and serial globetrotter: Becky from Kid World Citizen. Her family is as beautiful as a rainbow and could easily pass as a mini-United Nations. As a multicultural family, they lead by example to raise readers with a solid literacy background. However, they take it one step further to immerse themselves in rich cultural experiences.
Multicultural Education
On Kid World Citizen, you will find an ever-expanding database of age-appropriate, fun activities gathered from around the world. They are organized by topic and by country. These resources include games, recipes, art, film, world music, multicultural children’s literature, and much more. I have highlighted the Top 10 resources from Kid World Citizen below. Use these simple and practical resources to travel the world right from your own home or classroom.
Incredible multicultural education resources from a serial globetrotter! Share on X
Raising Culturally Responsive Children
This list of service projects for kids offers easy opportunities for kids to volunteer within their community. Volunteering empowers kids by encouraging responsibility, engaging their compassion. Most importantly, community service gives them the chance to affect the lives of others.
Included in this list are service projects to:
- serve the elderly service
- working with younger children
- help the environment in both local and global organizations
There are projects suited for all types of personalities so all kids learn that they can make a difference! These service projects are great for individuals as well as groups. For example, Girl Scouts, schools, church youth groups, clubs, and more.
World Maps and Geography
The Language of Maps Kids Should Know
Though in the age of iPhones and GPS, we seem to be losing paper maps. I still love exploring maps. Additionally, I believe kids need to learn map skills and develop their geography awareness. Because of this, I have many activities on Kid World Citizen to help parents and teachers teach children about maps. Kids not only can learn to read them, but to recognize their components and build their own maps. This is a list of vocabulary or concepts of maps kids should learn. Included are the geographic terms- and their definitions- paired with photos and map examples that kids should be able to identify.
“My Place in the World” Kids Geography Project
Complementing the book “Me on the Map,” this hands-on geography project I call “My Place in the World,” has kids create a visual representation of how we fit into the world. Geographic awareness is declining among kids, and yet understanding our place in our local and global communities is important in our interconnected world.
Using a series of concentric circles to show the relative sizes of different geographic places, this simple but effective lesson helps kids sort out their relation to one another. Since it is a favorite, I use this project yearly.
STEM Based Learning
I am always looking for ways for kids to become more familiar with maps and landforms and geography. 3D salt dough maps are such a fun project that can be easily adapted for all ages. Salt Dough Maps are made by mounting self-hardening dough onto cardboard, forming the mountains and other physical landforms, and then allowing it to dry so you can paint it (and then feel the peaks and valleys)!
Kids learn just as much IN the process. They can possibly learn more from the process than from the final product. As a result, you end up with a beautiful, handmade display item. We had several countries represented at our International Week at school. The kids were extremely proud of their creations. For educators, this project can be adapted to do local or state-wide geography, entire countries, or even continents.
Film and Technology
We asked our readers to share their children’s favorite French cartoons. We got suggestions from both native French speakers as well as beginners! As I was searching for clips, my kids enjoyed checking out the videos along with me. All of the cartoons listed are suitable for young kids, though I frequently use children’s cartoons to teach teenage language learners. Furthermore, this list of 12 favorite French cartoons (new and old, originating in France or Canada) are frequently available online.
Using the Web to Take Kids on Virtual Field Trips
Helping kids learn about the world can be an exciting adventure for both adults and kids. When teaching about the chateaux of the Loire Valley in France or ancient Mayan sites in Mexico, it can be difficult to find kid-friendly resources. These engaging and authentic pictures provide accurate information, and are sure to hold the attention of little ones. Consequently, virtual field trips help kids relate to the new culture and make comparisons with their own.
29 Incredible Nature Documentaries for Kids
My kids love animals and enjoy watching nature documentaries– especially when they feature animals! I started making a list of favorites, and gathering suggested titles of nature documentaries from my friends. If you have budding naturalists and kids who adore animals, here are 29 amazing nature documentaries. Using technology as an educational tool can be inspiring. These documentaries will guide you as you learn about the Earth through fascinating storytelling and phenomenal cinematography.
Global Citizenship
Diversity Calendar: Multicultural Celebrations
Our Diversity Calendar is a month-by-month, thorough collection of holidays around the world, including multicultural festivals and religious celebrations! I love using it in the class to create cultural awareness and plan time-appropriate activities related to seasonal global celebrations. It’s the perfect complement to a world religions unit, lessons about cultural diversity, or any class focused on multicultural education.
We add new holidays every year. Currently, it now includes 308 holidays from around the world. This includes religious celebrations, cultural festivals, and global holidays. The holidays are organized by month. Due to the academic school year, the current calendar goes from August 2017 – July of 2018. However, it is updated every school year to account for the changing dates of many holidays.
How to Get an International Pen-Pal
Writing to a pen-pal in another country can facilitate lifelong friendships. At the minimum, international pen pals enhance social studies, geography, as well as penmanship, and language skills. Therefore, I have listed four effective ways to find a pen-pal from another country.
Read Around the World
Nelson Mandela for Kids: Autobiography and Lessons
This article includes pre-reading and post-reading activities for Nelson Mandela’s abridged autobiography. This story is a phenomenal introduction to apartheid for children. Plus, there are additional resources to deepen learning about Nelson Mandela and scaffold learning with language arts activities with multicultural education.
Bonus: Lastly, Christmas Around the World: Traditions, Crafts, Recipes is extremely popular this time of year. This is a collection of Christmas traditions, recipes, and crafts from 19+ countries around the world. These are great tools for teaching how the Christmas holiday is celebrated around the world.
More About Becky
Becky Morales is the mom of 5 kids, and the creator of Kid World Citizen, offering activities that help young minds go global. She is a teacher (ESL and Spanish), teacher-trainer, speaker. In her “spare time”, she also wrote, “The Global Education Toolkit for Elementary Learners” (Corwin 2014).Join our Multicultural Education Tribe
In conclusion, I invite you to join our Multicultural Education discussion in my Facebook group. Our dynamic group is full of talented educators, as well as authors and parents. As a result, this is a very multicultural and multitalented group; highly dedicated to teaching literacy skills with diverse books. Together, we can simultaneously raise global citizens as we raise our readers.
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01/04/2018 @ 4:19 pm
Thank you for the fantastic resources!
01/04/2018 @ 4:30 pm
Becky over at Kid World Citizen is a pro. Such a role model for all teachers and parents. Love supporting her work and I am so glad you found the resources so helpful as well! Are you an international teacher yourself?