I chose Russia to be my new family's country of origin. I do not know anything about this culture and would love to learn more about it. Working in an early childhood center, some things I would do to prepare myself for the arrival of this child and family would be:
-Read up on the country history and government and learn about the traditions, culture, education systems, food, pop culture, and music.
-Include Russian children's stories and books in my class library and put out the food and dress representative of the country in the Dramatic Play area.
-Learn some basic phrases and words in the language like sit down, paper, crayons, scissors, bathroom, hello, etc.
-Print out labels in the written language to post around the room to accompany the labels in English and Spanish.
-Purchase popular Russian children's songs and include them into the curriculum.
I hope that by researching this country and setting up the classroom to include some of the things the child possibly saw in previous classrooms would be welcoming to the child and family. That they would see I was open and willing to help with the transition and with the education of their child. I hope they would see that me and the class were happy to have them be a part of our class community. I do not want to appear to be trying too hard and fake, so I would not bombard them with too much enthusiasm. Moving to another country is hard enough, so I would hope they could find some peace knowing their child was in an environment that celebrated her and not ignored her.
I agree with you that doing small things to integrate the culture in the classroom will send a strong message to the family of your willingness to work with them as partners. It will also provide comfort to the child to find some things that are familiar and hear a few words in his own language. Great ideas!
ReplyDeleteHi Lemora!
ReplyDeleteI agree with you. I think it’s important to integrate different cultures into the lesson plan. This will help every child not only the new child. It will give them all a sense of welcoming and belonging in the classroom.
Thanks for sharing!
Erika
Hi, not only would your preparations help make the child feel welcomed, it would also be a great learning tool for other children in the classroom to learn a lot about the Russian culture!
ReplyDeleteI like that you would place labels around the room in the child's language so that they could become familiar with the surroundings and everyone would be learning something new at the same time. Great idea! I also like that you thought to find Russian children's songs. That is great!
ReplyDelete