October is Black History Month, a time to celebrate the achievements and contributions that
people make to history, culture and society. We celebrate diversity at our setting and we are lucky to work with families who come from different backgrounds.
During this month, we have celebrated Black History in an age-appropriate way. The children have also been learning about topics such as road safety and alongside this they have discovered information about Garrett Morgan who invented the traffic light.
The children have followed on from the September topic of All About Me and have looked at what features we have that are the same or different. The children have been taught that everyone is special no matter what their skin tone may be. They have also loved sharing family photographs and talking about celebrations we may have.
They have also been linking their learning back to Startwell and “180 Katie” by exploring dance, music, movement and the arts. They have thoroughly enjoyed dancing to Reggae for Kids & African Folk music. The have even used instruments to make their own and making sounds on some of our newest resources like a ukulele.
We have been learning about how we need to be kind to everyone and have been sharing stories from the Little People Big Dreams series of books so that children can learn about great people like Rosa Parks and Martin Luther King Jr. We want our children to celebrate what people do to change the world.
Books are among the most effective ways of demonstrating to children the strength of diversity. During Black History Month books that centre the accomplishments of Black people both past and present (as well as positive representations of hair, skin, eyes, and other body parts babies love to look at) give young children the opportunity to see all kinds of people.
Very young children are able to engage, even subconsciously, with a something called “windows and mirrors,” which has been discussed by educator Rudine Sims Bishop. This way of looking at books involves noticing things children can recognise (mirrors) which could be something like “the girl in the story looks just like me” or “I like bananas too!” and some that may be new (windows) “my hair is different from his” or “I would like learn how to ride a bike.”
Here are some excellent multicultural children’s books that you could try at home, we will also be adding more books like this to our lending library –
So much – By Trish Cooke & Helen Oxenbury
Maisie’s Scrapbook – By Samuel Narh
Astro Girl – By Ken Wilson-Max
Little People, Big Dreams story series – lots of different books to choose from.
We look forward to celebrating more cultural events at Angels.
