How to celebrate culture and heritage at your kids’ school

Recently, an awesome member of my boys’ elementary school PTO told me that she was organizing a “Celebrate Your Heritage Week” at our school. I gladly offered to help. Any chance we have to celebrate our sons’ Vietnamese and Chinese cultures and teach their friends and classmates about them, we are happy to do so.

Many schools do this each year as part of their curriculum, and you can offer to help.  But if it’s a new idea, you’ll need to get approval from school administration.

Here are a several ways that you can incorporate activities that encourage cultural awareness and appreciation at your school.

1. Decorate your cafeteria, hallways, and classrooms with flags, maps and items from the countries that your students represent (and others, too).
2. Have a day where kids wear t-shirts from different places that they’ve visited, where they were born, or where their parents were born.
3. Incorporate culinary delights.  Plan a day where parents bring in snacks that represent their heritages – be sure to include nut-free and glutten-free options on a separate table. We did this at our school and it was a huge it – and the parents were delighted to share culinary specialties from their cultures (many were even homemade).
   

   How to celebrate heritage at school – I handrolled 60 spring rolls!

   Even having kids who live in Coastal California try grits or having New England students try Indiana sugar cream pie would be a treat.

   

   How to celebrate heritage at school – Alex trying some treats from China

4. Ask your kids’ teachers to incorporate lessons on different holidays and festivals from the countries they are from. My sons’ teachers let me plan an hour-long lesson and celebration for Tet (Vietnamese New Year) and Chinese New Year for their classes. Nate even wears his ai dao for the occasion. It is always a huge hit.  And the kids in their classes are starting to remember details about the holidays and why they are important.
   

   How to celebrate heritage at school – Tet partylast year with Nate and his amazing teacher

5. Find some music from different countries and play it during lunch, at recess, in classrooms, or during music class.
6. Have a parent, grandparent or someone in your community come speak to a class or school assembly to talk about life in the country where they are from.
7. Ask your art teacher to incorporate artistic techniques or crafts within their class like Australian dot painting or Mexican sugar skulls.
8. Gym class or recess could add some fun games to play from around the world like Pilolo a game from Ghana that involves hiding sticks and stones and having kids find them or Australia’s Stuck in the Mud, a tag-like game where you have to crawl under a “frozen” player’s legs to “unfreeze” them.

Travel certainly opens the minds of our kids to new things, experiences and cultures, but exposing them through activities like these at school can also help them appreciate others and celebrate our differences. What other things have you done at your school to honor heritage and culture?