Reasons why German parenting is great.
30 Multicultural Picture Books about Immigration; Children's Books about the immigration experience; African/Asian/Hispanic; Preschool & Elementary School;
Review of Kayla: A Modern-Day Princess - A Little Magic for Multicultural Children's Book Day
How to choose a name for your multicultural and multilingual baby
We can encourage a growth mindset in children and teens by reading growth mindset biographies like these excellent choices.
Find out how to teach cultural empathy to children from our multicultural, global family. In the last decade, my husband and I have been living as global nomads
Learn about the Tokyo Olympics through craft. Kids can make a fun origami sumo with an easy-to-follow step-by-step tutorial.
By Stacy Whitman I really appreciated FMHLisa’s repost of her “On Being White in a White White World” post because this is the kind of thing I talk a lot about in my work. I run Tu Books, an imprin…
Using Montessori approach when raising multilingual children at home.
Tourette's syndrome (Tourette's) is a neurological disorder characterized by the occurrence of uncontrollable movements and sounds, called tics. The tics can be body movements such as simultaneous movement of the arms and legs, jerking of the head, sounds such as tickling, shouting, grunting and others.
Our multicultural kids and their multicultural friendships. Our playdates get quite interesting with give languages between eight children.
Māori resources for classrooms, teachers and parents. Printable and free.
Introducing and exposing babies to a variety of and cultures
We need diverse children’s books so that our students can see themselves and their classmates in a variety of text.
If you want to try expanding your child’s worldview, then consider some of these fantastic titles.
Raising a Trilingual Child Is Not Always a Bed of Roses. by Nathalie Vieweger I was raised trilingual from birth. My mother was Dutch, my father - German and the community language was (often) English. I am a TCK - Third Culture Kid. I am now raising a trilingual child myself (English, Dutch and Spanish) as his father is English and we live in Spain. I used to go to international schools, and I’m a teacher at a bilingual school, so I have seen my fair amount of bilingual children. Read my full story: Trilingual mama - trilingual kid. Why would it be any other way? As much as I am a supporter of raising a child multilingual, I also see many parents struggle with their decision to raise their child in more than one language. Generally information and articles one can find on trilingualism are predominantly pro raising a child with more than one language. They seem to just surpass the struggles involved in a trilingual upbringing. I have decided to show both sides of a (in this case) trilingual upbringing. Bearing in mind that what I am writing is based on my experiences and my opinion I invite you to have a look at my perspective on this matter. Looking back as an adult I can not express how grateful I am for having been brought up trilingually. I have learned the languages effortlessly and have had many opportunities other (monolingual) peers did not have. My being “native” in three languages looks fantastic on my CV and it has opened doors that would otherwise have been shut. My personal identity is based on my three languages. The languages of my thoughts and dreams vary in different situations. The languages I speak are linked to the culture they belong to, having broadened my view of the world. I have become more open-minded (I believe) than my peers. My nicest memory of being trilingual must be going to a restaurant in the Netherlands with three of my (multilingual) friends. With four of us at the table mixing French, English, German and Dutch effortlessly, and the conversation making sense to all of us, we noticed being stared at by all the other visitors of the restaurant. I think all four of us realized at that moment, how special our conversation was to others, and we couldn’t help but be filled with pride. Being unique in this way certainly is a beautiful thing. Also, thanks to my upbringing, I have been able to learn a fourth language with less effort than a monolingual person would have. Having said that, and again pointing out how grateful I am, must admit that there have been quite a lot of downsides to my trilingual upbringing. Mainly, the fact that I do not speak any of the three languages completely accent-free or flawlessly. That is to say, I do not have a strong accent, and native speakers of either of the languages say I almost sound like a native… almost… in all three languages !! Because of that, many times people have asked me where I was from (a difficult question anyway for TCKs, and moreover trilingual ones). Apparently I am not a native in any language. Maybe the point of not being completely native has had an effect on the way I see myself as well as the way others see me. At work sometimes I get complimented about the difficult sentence structure I use (any monolingual person would be downright insulted), with friends I often struggle to find the nuances in certain discussions, making me sound tactless or just not very smart. I struggle to separate the languages fully, so I translate proverbs or sayings literally into the other language, or I use complicated long German sentence structures while writing Dutch. Making it look like I don not grasp the concept of a full stop. I personally believe something gets lost along the way, the thing native people just grasp. Many of my friends at the European school struggle with the same issues now they are adults. I would say being a trilingual person has filled me with a sense of pride riddled with a faint feeling of incompetence. Observing my trilingual son So now I am on road to raising my own trilingual child. My son is 2.5 now, and I am proud to say he is in fact becoming pretty trilingual. He is starting to differentiate the languages, speaking to his dad in English, speaking to me in Dutch and to his teachers in Spanish. Am I proud of it? Very much so! But the poor kid does struggle at times. I sometimes wish he would be able to say what he wants to everybody, without having to think what language they understand. He excitedly wants to tell his dad that he has seen something, and then gets a confused look as an answer. He tries to tell his teacher he came to school by bike, she looks at him blankly, asking me to translate. The moment has gone and he goes off to do something else. I feel he is at times missing out on basic social interactions, and with that important connections to the people around him, that monolingual children naturally have. He seems to have to make an extra effort. Obviously in the future he will be much more capable of separating the languages, but for now it is a bit of a downside. Something I just recently noticed that is definitely a down-side of raising a trilingual child is the following: Very often my partner and I spend time together with our little boy. Making jokes, playing or reading books. As Daniël was not speaking a lot, we would usually both speak our own language to him. Recently Daniël has started speaking more…and there the conflict within him started. We were talking about pictures in a book when Daniël excitedly wanted to say something. He looked at Rich, then back at me, then back to Rich until he finally decided to talk in Dutch … to me. He most obviously had a bit of an issue deciding what language to speak, in the end leaving his dad out of the conversation. These loyalty-issues will come up more often until he realizes that we both understand English. I felt bad for him for feeling he had to chose between his mama or his dad. Struggles for us as parents As my partner doesn’t speak Dutch, we speak English together. When I speak to Daniël I generally speak Dutch. But when we are all together it seems a bit strange to first say something in Dutch to my son, and then translate it into English. Obviously, as he is just 2, we don’t really have any interesting, translation-worthy conversations. But it won’t be long before either my partner feels left out, I translate a lot of our conversations, or I speak English to both in family situations. In my opinion following the “trilingual rule-book” is secondary to all members of the family feeling comfortable when we are together. Something else is speaking to your child in public in a minority language, when it sounds like gobbledygook to everybody. The Dutch language sounds like somebody is having a stroke - and a serious one. We get many looks from people when they hear us speak. Obviously that does not stop me from speaking to Daniël in Dutch. But I would be lying if I said it doesn’t make me feel awkward at times. I worry about Daniëls reaction to this in the future, at some point it will be humiliating for him. What really gets me crabby however, are people correcting him. His Dutch and English being treated as if he is making a mistake. In a local bar he shows his car to the staff. He enthusiastically claims: “Car!!”. The staff shake their head and say “No Daniel, es un coche!!” as if he made a mistake. Conclusion Raising a trilingual child is not the easiest route to take. In the modern world full of mixed couples and expats it is, however, a necessary route for many. If your main (or even only) goal is to make your child speak more than one language, it is not very complicated. Speak to your child in your language and expose him/her to it as much as possible. Difficulties arise when the minority language is not spoken by both parents, the minority parent is uncomfortable speaking their language in public, the child finds it difficult to distinguish between the languages, or the child, as an adult feels incompetent in all languages. My advice is ask yourself if you are willing to take the challenges of raising a child with more than one language. Are you willing to be looked at in a strange manner by the community? Are you willing to speak to your child in a language your spouse doesn’t understand? I am, but up to a certain point. The OPOL (one person one language) approach is something I strongly believe in. But I believe that the well being of all of my family members is far more important. I will, therefore, not always speak the minority language with my son. I find it hard to accept the funny looks, when I speak gobbledygook with my child, but know it is the price I have to pay. I would have preferred to raise my little boy in one language, or two at the most, but our situation is what it is, and it being so, I am very proud of my little trilingual monkey/aap/mono. And I know he will be, as I am myself, very grateful for the gift of languages. UPDATE 21/02/2018: By now Daniel is 5 and very trilingual. The struggle stays the same (although my partner has learned some basic Dutch by listening to us speaking to each other. Daniels favourite language is Spanish (community language that we do not speak at home) his Dutch is near native and English is his weakest language. Having said that, he still does not feel embarrassed to speak Dutch to me in public (not thanks to the amount of people rudely staring at us in the bus). We still do a variation of OPOL but very flexible, sometimes using all three the languages in one conversation. I can conclude that it works, and am very happy we were flexible and am still proud of the ease of which this trilingual upbringing works. I think one mainly doubts during the first years, once the child responds to us, we become more secure we are doing the right thing. Wishing you all the best of luck during your journey of the gift of languages. Books on Raising Trilingual Kids Language Strategies for Trilingual Families: Parents' Perspectives (Parents' and Teachers' Guides) by Andreas Braun - E-book - Book Growing up with Three Languages: Birth to Eleven (Parents' and Teachers' Guides) by Xiao-lei Wang - E-book - Book Trilingual by Six: The sane way to raise intelligent, talented children by Lennis Dippel MD - E-book - Book ---- Are you interested to participate in the Life Story series and write about your experience as a bilingual or multilingual child and/or a parent? Would you like to take part in the Multilingual Family Interview series ? You can contact me here. Are you a multilingual family and looking for a playdate in your language or another family to chat with? Click here to find it now! You might also like reading What language should I speak to my child in public? - Multilingual parent dilemma. Raising a Bilingual Child. How to Start So You Don't Feel Giving It Up Halfway Through. One parent speaks two languages. Raising a trilingual child. Life Story: Trilingual mama - trilingual kid. Why would it be any other way? Multilingual Family Interview: When your home languages are different from community language. Plus resources for teaching phonics and reading to children in English. 7 facts that can determine the language spoken between multilingual siblings. Listen to kids radio in your language ! Still undecided what language to speak to your child? Read about possible language strategies. And read my answers to parents questions in Question and Answer series. So excited! My first book was published and available on Amazon! in Russian language (КТО Я?) and in Italian language (CHI SONO IO?) View on AMAZON or visit my author's page.
For teachers, parents, and librarians, a thorough list of books for children ages 3-8 which exemplifies diversity. These books feature diverse characters in everyday contemporary life.
Teaching Our Children About Diversity and Compassion. Help children and the children to face racism, anti-Semitism, and misogyny in loving, peaceful ways.
Parents and teachers, feel free to print this for your classrooms and kids if you think the message could be useful, as long as you don’t use it on anything you plan to sell. Click HERE to download a higher resolution. To see […]
I've been excited to share this project for weeks. Worry dolls are an ingenious Guatemalan craft that help ease troubles of parents and children who are working together to cope with stress associated with sickness and poverty . The idea is to make a likeness of the child and place it under their pillow at night. The belief is that the doll will take away the worry or sickness as they sleep. Like a dream catcher the act of making the craft is soothing. The project fits in perfectly with the library's summer theme - One World, Many Voices. I began the workshop by retelling the folklore story about how the craft of making worry dolls began, I found a great resource at this site http://www.sciencejoywagon.com/kwirt/mayan/ With a group of almost a hundred preregistered children we set up supplies in separate stations around the room to fully utilize the space and avoid congestion. To stop heads from rolling four 10 mm beads are separated into cups. The multicultural chenille stems are a must, we ordered them from Dick Blick. This is the clothing table, fabric is cut to 2 1/4" x 4" strips, colorful yard for tying and scissors. We had another table filled with an array of hair choices that included: yarn, embroidery floss, and wool roving in an assortment of colors. The last stop was lidded jewelry boxes with colored paper tape and adhesive dots. After collecting all the materials the first step is to wrap the hair of choice five times around your fingertips. Slip the hair off your fingertips and trap it in the crook of a folded chenille stem. This sample shows a pinch of roving caught in the fold. Slide the bead head up over chenille stem ends so that it rests under the hair. Here are three dolls ready with embroidery floss hair and heads. To form the legs and arms, fold up the length of the chenille ends so they extend above the hair. The folded ends will become the feet and the ends will fold down at the neck to become the arms. Fold over the very end of the arms to shorten their length and shape hands. Every child was encouraged to make a set of four dolls to showcase a variety of skin tones and hair color. To clothe your doll wrap the fabric scrap under the dolls arms use a length of brightly colored yarn to wrap and tie it in place. This young artist was using the yarn to make the clothing, he just kept on wrapping. To make pants cut the fabric piece in half wrap and tie them around each leg. With a fold and a snip this doll ended up with a nifty felt shirt. Fancy braided hair is held in place with yarn bows. This doll was being tucked into bed, shhhh.... Decorating the boxes, was almost as fun as making the dolls. I was so pleased that the boys enjoyed this project almost as much as the girls. Wishing you all worry free days of happy crafting!
Conflict of Cultures or Clash of Cultures is evident in international adoption work. It is difficult to explain to someone that has never worked in international adoption, how culture can play such a significant role in the international adoption process. Culture compounded with poverty creates a process that is completely indescribable or fathomable by most. ...
Director James Wan is best known for his unique variety of multicultural horror, with films from the massive "Conjuring" universe and "Insidious" franchise at its center. Wan's renown as a director is palpable, but his origins are not as well known. Wan's early journey James Wan was originally born in Sarawak, Malaysia, to Malaysian-Chinese parents.
J'ai du bon tabac dans ma tabatière, [I have good tobacco in my snuff box,] J'ai du bon tabac, tu n'en auras pas. [I have good tobacco and you will get none.] J'en ai du fin et du bien râpé, [I have some fine, and some well-shredded,] Mais ce n'est pas pour ton vilain nez ! [But they are not for your ugly nose.] J'ai du bon tabac dans ma tabatière, [I have good tobacco in my snuff box,] J'ai du bon tabac, tu n'en auras pas. [I have good tobacco and you will get none.] This is how the chorus of a popular French nursery rhyme goes. This song is on a recent CD we borrowed from the library. I knew this song from my childhood and still remembered the lyrics. However, I found myself a little shocked and unable to sing it to my daughter. She is 3! She doesn't even really know what a cigarette is, let alone tobacco and snuff boxes. I let her listen to it, but felt I couldn't really teach it to her. So, we moved on to the next one! Admittedly, this song dates back from the 17th century and customs or habits that appeared natural and part of daily life then, are not really appropriate any more today. Children did not have the relatively more protected childhood our children have today. It got me thinking about the nursery rhymes we teach our children. How about this old French rhyme? La Mère Michel. It is from the 1820s and I remember learning it at school for a show. I find it quite funny. But some may find it a little cruel. As a multicultural family, it is important to both myself and my husband to pass on some of the songs we learnt as children. When I was pregnant, I would stick headphones on my belly and play some children's songs to her. We hope this will form part of her cultural heritage too. I have come to realise, though, that some of these songs, still used today, can be a little inappropriate. Here is another example that I learnt in my childhood and also sing to my daughter regularly! Alouette Alouette, gentille alouette, [Lark, nice lark,] Alouette, je te plumerai. [Lark, I will pluck you.] Je te plumerai la tête. Je te plumerai la tête. [I will pluck your head. I will pluck your head.] Et la tête! Et la tête! [And your head! And your head!] Alouette! Alouette! [Lark! Lark!] A-a-a-ah [O-o-o-o] My husband also sings this one: Atirei o pau ao gato Atirei o pau ao gato tô tô [I threw a stick to a cat] Mas o gato tô tô [but the cat] Não morreu reu reu [did not die] Dona Chica cá [Ms Chica] Admirou-se se [was astonished] Com o berro, com o berro que o gato deu [with the scream the cat made] Miau !!!!!! [meow] Or what about the original version of this popular rhyme: Eennie Meenie Miney Moe Catch a tiger by the toe Do you know what used to be instead of tiger? I will let you find out on the Wikipedia page, I am not going to type the word! You may prefer the French version which is inoffensive and means nothing (none of the words are real). Am, stram, gram, Pic et pic et colégram, Bour et bour et ratatam, Am, stram, gram. Stories of death, killing, bullying or racism are very common in old nursery rhymes. Is it a bad thing? I am not sure. It is part of our culture. I learnt these songs and I am not a bad person (I think). These nursery rhymes were meant to educate children by scaring them a little. I don't mean to scare my girl. But you cannot wrap children in cotton wool forever. I wouldn't got as far as teaching the tobacco song to a group of 7-year-olds to be performed at a show (as a fellow mum explained). I don't think my 3-year old understands the message behind these songs yet anyway. What can you do about it (if anything)? You could change the lyrics to suit your needs/feelings.The Portuguese song mentioned above actually has a more politically correct version now (taught in schools) which does not involve killing cats! You could, when the child is older, explain what it means and why it is this way. You could also create new lovely nursery rhymes to reflect the modern times. We hear few around and it is a shame or maybe we hear them, but will only realise they have become classics in a couple of generations.
Introducing Welcome to the Jungle's new brand identity: work for more.
From speaking to many parents who are raising bilingual or multilingual children, I have compiled a list of the most common mistakes:
As you may know we are a Turkish family living in the UK and therefore our children speak Turkish at home but they are also learning English at the same time. When Defne (6yo),our daughter, was about 2 years old, we were a bit anxious that she would have difficulty when she starts preschool. So we bought a language course for children: Muzzy It comes complete with DVDs, CDs and books. Muzzy is a character who is learning English. The quality of the animations is not perfect (I don't know if they have changed it in the meantime,as we bought these back in 2009) but overall the programme is very engaging and both children enjoy it. It is available in several languages: French,Spanish,German,English,Italian and Chinese. We all know that young children are capable of learning a language very easily. Unlike adults who need to study very hard, children can absorb a new language in a very short time given the opportunity. Maria Montessori states that children go through a senstive period for learning a lanuage and this periods comes to an end at the age of six. Until the age of six, children can internalize a language easily. As they get older, they need to put more effort to learn another language. Last year we decided to add a third language for Defne: French. We have been studying French using First French with Super Chat. It is very engaging book that teaches through games,activities and songs. I am happy to say that Defne has learnt some French in about 9 months. B small publishing speacilizes in bilingual books so if you are interested, check out their website. She likes speaking with her French friends at school. We don't actively speak French at home but we do read French books that we borrow from the library and sometimes she watches French cartoons. We also have the above mentioned Muzzy set in French. I am sure if it is still available but when we bought it, you could choose a second language for free. You can see a few pages from the book : Another tool that we find pretty useful is a box of flash cards: Einfach Alles This box consists of 150 picture cards and on the back of each card you have the same word in 6 different languages: Turkish,English,French,Spanish,Chinese and German. Are you raising bilingual/multilingual children? I would love to hear which books or resources you like. Please share in the comments. If you think about teaching your child another language but don't know where to start, this site has some tips. The Children's Bookshelf is co-hosted by What Do We Do All Day, No Twiddle Twaddle, Smiling like Sunshine, Mouse Grows Mouse Learns , Mommy and Me Book Club ,My Little Bookcase, The Picture Book Review, Sprout's Bookshelf and Meme Tales. You can also follow our Pinterest Board . This post is part of The Children’s Bookshelf, a weekly linky party with the goal of connecting parents with great books for their kids. Do you have a book review, literacy or book-related post that you think will be helpful for parents? If so, link up below. Thank you so much for stopping by! If you enjoyed this post, please join us on Facebook,Twitter,Pinterest and G+. Click on the buttons on the right handside to follow us on these platforms.
Check out these parenting practices to see how your parenting style is similar or different to these other cultures. Which ones would you like to try?
With the Winter Olympics hosted by South Korea this year, we are exploring South Korean traditional instruments and learning about world music.
Infographics We invite you to download these infographics. If you would like to buy the bookmarks or poster-sized versions of these infographics please fill out a request form. "I love the posters I ordered. I put two in my office and 2 out in the waiting room of the Behavioral Health and Psychiatry Clinic at
Children of the World multicultural activities provide an engaging way for Montessori preschool students to learn about different cultures. With a variety of activities and printables, children can explore and celebrate the diversity of our
As parents, we want our kids to model kindness, understanding and empathy. In today’s diverse world, a large part of that is being aware and sensitive of other cultures. No matter the age of your children or the community in which you live, there are many opportunities to introduce and teach cultural diversity in a fun, respectful way.
Concerned about the state of the world, Canadian author and illustrator Elise Gravel created a wonderfully timely illustrated poster that explains the
