Aracele Melgoza

Child Development 262

11/13/14
Incorporating Culture in ECE
There are different ways to incorporate Culture into an Early Childhood classroom. Before
teaching Culture a teacher should prepare and plan ahead time. It is important for a teacher to
first learn and understand about each childs culture to eliminate any conflicts. In my perspective
parents should be invited to share things about their culture. Sharing information can help a
teacher implement activities for the children and learn about different backgrounds. A teacher
can invite three to five parents to come to the classroom setting and share a recipe from their
culture. Teachers can also, invite families to share any culture tradition. For example, a parent
can share a type of music or dance in their culture. I currently had a parent who came in to the
center and teach children how to dance Mexican folkloric dance. The children learn about their
costumes and learn some steps on how to dance folkloric dance. Children were happy knowing
that they had their peer parent teach them how to dance folkloric. The activity that the teacher
selected for the Mexican Culture was their costumes and dance. The teacher gather materials
such as construction cut outs, different color yarn, glue, textile cutouts and glitter. The parents
volunteer to donate shirts for every child. The children added their decorations onto their shirts
and created their costume hats with feathers. The families were invited to come in the center and
see their children dance folkloric dance. The parent who volunteered to teach the children gave a
simple speech to the parents about her Mexican traditions and why they dance folkloric music
and the importance about their costumes. She shared that they dance folkloric in ceremonies and
even dance to honor any saint. Their costumes represent the five elements of nature. Many of the

parents asked the parent questions such as is she can come and teach their children more on how
to dance etc. The results of this encourage the shy parents to come and teach something about
their own tradition. Another, family culture aspect is language. I highly recommend teaching
children different culture languages. In the classroom setting a teacher can teach a child about
four to five different languages. I had a student who speaked Chinese, I encourage her during
circle time to teach her classmates the numbers from one to fifteen and the colors. Children were
more motivated by her than by me teaching them how to say their numbers and colors.
Encouraging children to teach other children their language is also a factor of sharing. Children
at a young age need to learn how to share and what not best teaching other children about their
own knowledge. Also, a teacher can implement in her lesson plan a week about her culture. Such
as sharing special foods, music, dance and language since children love learning especially those
active learners. A teacher can choose bring speakers in the classroom from her childrens culture
if you have parents who cant come in because of work. The other choice can be a family
fieldtrip. Lastly, a teacher can teach culture awareness by having children explore. The teacher
can arrange the classroom by providing materials in the areas around the room. For example,
adding different outfits in the dramatic area, adding picture foods on the wall, imitation foods,
recipes on the kitchen area, on the water table adding images of different seasons and providing
materials for the season of cultural choice ( if the weather in the specific culture you choose is
cold you may want to add ice), in the art area provide images in the wall based on the cultures
you choose to teach by providing different art tools ( paint, glue, textile fabric cut outs, paper
rolls etc.). Providing different sources around the classroom will encourage childrens
knowledge, learning and critical thinking. This is why its important for teachers to plan and
learn about the Cultures they are going to teach so that they can educate not only children but

parents. Teachers should also think about a good experience they want to leave the parents and
teach new strategies to parents on how to teach children about different backgrounds.