TK Class Learns About Their Own World Cultures
by jill
Rose Coffield, TK Teacher at Paden Elementary, contacted AEF about helping to fund a project for her students to learn more about the variety of cultural backgrounds represented in her class. She wrote:
"I am interested in purchasing materials (multicultural books, world map, art supplies, food) to do a project around where my students families are from. Families in my class come from over 15 different countries, and I would love to do a project where we research and learn more about the different cultures the families come from. ...This is a new TK classroom and [PTA] funding has [already] been allocated to basic classroom supplies."
With support from an AEF Teacher Mini Grant, Ms. Coffield sent back her report:
"Our project is still ongoing, and has been an amazing experience for me, the students, and their families. The structure of the project is that we "fly to" a new country every week. The countries we visit are based on those that are connected to the families in our class. We initially read a book about the country and then I asked the students to tell me one thing they want to know more about or try doing based on what we read. Then we build our projects for the week based on this. So far, we have visited Vietnam, Sudan, China, The Philippines, Pakistan, Mongolia, and Iran and we are just getting started. We have used the grant to buy the books we can't find in the library and the materials to create our projects. Just a few of the things we have made are a Filippino 'Jeepney', a Pakistani art truck, a Chinese/Vietnamese Dragon, sand dough to make hieroglyphics that we saw in Sudan, ice cream that was invented in Iran and a great number of flags. I underestimated how excited the class would be about these projects and can't wait to do more! "
