What is multicultural for kids?

• Hey Super mamma, you’re fantastic! Kudos to you for researching ways to enhance your baby’s or toddlers’ life by introducing multicultural activities to them at such a young age. By doing so, they’ll have a deeper understanding of all the people who make up this beautiful world. As a result, once they meet children from different ethnic groups they will be more open and accepting of those individuals. For instance, let’s say you have a classroom of majority cultural students, and one of the minority students is from an ethnic group, that you introduced to your infant or toddler. If you taught your child how to say hello, in that language and your child greets this classmate in their language, that could be the start of a great friendship! We’ll in this blog post; I’ll share some awesome Kenyan inspired multicultural activities for babies, toddlers, preschoolers, and kindergarteners.

Why Kenyan Inspired Multicultural Activities?

• Above is a photo of my immediate family, while we may look like a typical African American family, we are not. My husband is from Bungoma, Kenya, and I am from Atlanta, GA. Our daughter is a Kenyan American and we want her to know both cultures. Our main goal is to lead our children to know and love God and themselves, respect others no matter how they look or where they are from, and be open to embracing others, especially because of their differences. We believe real growth happens as a result of what we learn from others.
• One of the things I love most about my husband is the mesmerizing stories he tells me about growing up in Kenya. I’m always fascinated by his culture and upbringing. We are intentional about incorporating  Kenyan cultural activities in Baby C’s curriculum, which has helped me learn more about Kenya as well!  I’d love to share some of these activities with you, so keep reading!

How Do You Promote Cultural Diversity In Early Childhood?

• My favorite way to promote cultural diversity in early childhood is through inclusion! At least once a month we have dinner with our extended family, this makes for great bonding time between the adults and our kids. Also, having healthy conversations about other cultures in our home. We achieve this by speaking positively about different cultures and ethnic groups. We diversify our circle of friends and by doing so, Baby C benefits because she is observing our positive behavior as we interact with diverse cultures.
• An added benefit to our diverse community is that our children get to grow up together and as parents, we share multicultural activities and resources with each other that helps to keep our children engaged in a healthy way.

How do you teach diversity to toddlers?

* Teaching diversity to toddlers by use of their five senses is a fun way to introduce multicultural learning activities to your toddlers.

• An excellent way to teach your toddler about diversity is through the use of multicultural activities. Step one could be introducing them to the world map. Last week, Baby C and I did a lesson on the 7 continents. We watched this YouTube video while I showed her each continent on her globe. I was intentional about teaching her in a way that showed respect for the different cultures and ethnic groups represented in the continents because we believe respect is the heart of diversity!

What activities can you do with an infant?

• We’ve exposed our daughter to many multicultural activities, below are the top 6. Number 5 is my favorite.

# 1: Listen to Music from Different Countries

• Listening to multicultural music is a fun multicultural learning activity. This is a great activity for learning and to get them moving! I search Swahili for Kids from Apple Music, because Swahili is one of the main languages in Kenyan, and we enjoy listening and dancing to the upbeat tunes. My husband will translate the words and meanings of the song for us. It’s an activity we all enjoy together. Baby C loves to dance to the music and I’ve learned so many words in Swahili from incorporating this activity into her weekly schedule. 

# 2: Read Multicultural Books

• Find Multicultural Books from authors who are native to that culture or have a native experience with that particular culture. This way you’ll have a more authentic insight into the cultural or ethnic group.

# 3: Use World Maps & Globes

• I really enjoy this multicultural activity because I learn so much as well!

What are two activities you can do to learn about other cultures?

The following activities can be done with infants, toddlers, preschoolers, and kindergarteners!

• As mentioned before, my husband is from Kenya and we’d like to expose our daughter to Kenyan culture as much as possible, most of the learning activities below will be Kenyan inspired.   

# 4: Learn a New Language – Multicultural Coloring Pages

• Learning a new language through the use of coloring pages is an amazing multicultural learning activity for toddlers, preschoolers, and kindergartens. Here are some coloring pages I created to teach my daughter and other moms how to teach their children to count from 1 to 10 in Swahili.  
  • P.S. I’ve included a video below to help you pronounce One through Ten in Swahili!

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How to Count from 1 to 10 in Swahili!

 

# 5: Inclusion

• This is my favorite multicultural activity because children learn from each other. Also, inclusion makes things they’ve learned come alive, and I think we learn best from real-life experiences. Lastly, spending time (not money) with people who are different from you makes you feel more comfortable and you begin to see how much you are alike as well.

Bonus # 6: Multicultural Educational Videos

• Akili and Me – Watching multicultural educational videos during screen time is a nice multicultural learning activity to do with your toddler. One of my Kenyan mom friends shared this amazing educational video resource with me. Akili and Me is an educational series created for toddlers, preschoolers, and kindergarteners. They learn letters, numbers, phonics, English, Swahili, and so much more. Akili and Me is also a great resource for parents, like me, who want to learn how to speak Swahili. This is a very colorful and upbeat educational video series that will have the entire family singing, dancing, and learning.

The Last Thing You Need to Know About Multicultural Activities for Infants & Toddlers

• As parents, we are our children’s first advocates and role models in the world. Their minds are most absorbent between the ages of 0-3 years. As parents, it is crucial that we steward that responsibility well. We should be careful about how you speak and how you treat other cultures, especially in front of them. I hope this blog post helped you find multicultural activities for your infant and toddler.
• I’d love to hear from you! Please let me know what your favorite multicultural activity is in the comments below. Also, if you found this blog post helpful share it with all your cool mom friends!