What’s a powerful way to teach young students how to understand and accept different people? With cultural studies. Learning about other cultures helps children see that there are many ways to live and that they all have value. Additionally, it gives them a greater understanding and empathy for others.
With all these great benefits, you might be wondering how to incorporate cultural studies into your classroom. Lucky for you, we’ve got some great ideas for having a culture week in your classroom! This will be a week where you focus on a different country each day. Here’s how to make it happen.
How To Run A Culture Week In Your Classroom
Choose a different country each day for your culture week
To get things started, you’ll need to choose which countries to focus on.
You can either let the students pick countries or you can assign them yourself. If you have a diverse classroom, you may want to focus on countries that are represented in your student body.
Alternatively, you can choose countries that you think would be interesting and beneficial for your students to learn about. For example, you may want to focus on countries with different types of governments. Or on countries that have recently been in the news.
By the end of the day, you should have a list of countries that you’ll be focusing on for the week.
Learn about the country’s history, food, art, and customs
Once you’ve chosen your countries, it’s time to start learning about them!
Each day you’ll focus on a different country. You can learn about the country’s history, food, art, and customs. There are a lot of great resources available online and in libraries.
Here’s a few questions to get you going:
- What were some important events that shaped the country? Who are their famous people?
- What do people eat there? What are their traditional dishes?
- What kinds of art do people make there? What famous pieces can you check out?
- What are some traditions their people follow? Anything similar? Or perhaps vastly different?
Now, that should cover the “educational” part of the week. But to make it more engaging, the following are ideas for activities you can do each day.
Have students dress up in the traditional clothing
One way to make culture week more fun is to have students dress up in traditional clothing from the country you’re focusing on.
This is a great way for students to learn about different types of clothing and how people dress in different parts of the world. To get started, you can have students bring in traditional clothing from home. Or you can purchase some yourself.
If you’re having trouble finding traditional clothing, you can also have students dress up in clothes that you would typically associate with the country. For example, if you’re focusing on France, students could dress up in berets and striped shirts. There’s no need to be too literal with this activity. The point is to have students dress up in a way that is symbolic of the country.
Prepare country-specific foods
If you’re able to incorporate food into your culture week, then you’ll GREATLY enhance the experience for your students. Not only will they get to try new foods, but they’ll also learn what people in different parts of the world eat.
This activity does take a bit more work on your part, as you’ll need to do some research, cooking or food purchasing, and possibly food preparation. But it’ll be worth it!
Food is a crucial part of every single culture. And by incorporating it into your culture week, you’ll be giving your students a more well-rounded and enjoyable experience.
Here’s a few ideas to get you started:
- France: Croissants, baguettes, macarons, quiche
- Italy: Pizza, spaghetti, gelato
- Mexico: Tacos, guacamole, churros
- China: Egg rolls, fried rice, noodles
- Japan: Sushi, tempura, teriyaki
Okay! With these ideas in mind, you should be well on your way to planning an awesome culture week for your students. Just remember to have fun with it. And to make sure that your students are learning something new. Good luck!
Conclusion
Culture week is a great way to learn about different cultures and add some excitement to your classroom. By doing a bit of research, you can easily incorporate cultural studies into your elementary classroom. So what are you waiting for? Start planning your culture week today!
And here’s an interesting fact for you: how do different cultures connect with each other nowadays? Online! And that means good typing skills are essential no matter what culture you come from. Improve your student’s typing skills with KeyboardingOnline software. It’s fun and easy to use. And it will help your students type faster and better than ever before.