Community

Community. We are all part of a community, whether it is our town, city, workplace, or classroom. To live and function within a society, one needs to know how to interact with humans. How to navigate friendships and relationships, adhere to social norms, and take care of one another. Hopefully, we learn to recognize each other's similarities and differences and cultural backgrounds so we can further cultivate and cohabitate in a peaceful community. Children aren't born with these skills.These are learned skills that need to be cultivated and fostered. Below are some ideas, resources, and links to help you further promote these skills within your children.

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Creating Art for Cultural Awareness

Art is an excellent way to highlight similarities or differences like skin tone, hairstyle, and eye color. Helping the child pick out a piece of construction paper that best fits their skin tone and allow them to create a mirror image of themselves can be exciting. It will further open up a conversation about how each face is unique and beautiful.

Creating a hand quilt with your students is another way to highlight skin tone differences and similarities. Again, each child can find the shade of construction paper that best fits their skin. They can then trace their hand, cut it out, and glue the hand onto a square of paper. Each child can then decorate and print their name on the palm of the hand.

The Love Light

Teaching children to open their hearts and minds to the cultural diversity surrounding them can start with showing them how we are all similar, no matter our skin, hair, or eye color. The Love Light activity is a great way to point out differences and similarities in all of us.

Honoring the Light of the Child by Sonnie McFarland can be found on Amazon & Montessori Services

Building Community through Grace & Courtesy

Within a Montessori environment, Grace and Courtesy lessons help the child learn to navigate the expectations and social dynamics of the community successfully. You can use Grace and Courtesy to establish guidelines for respectful behavior to promote social independence and self-regulation. Grace and Courtesy can also help your child in functional independence. Showing your child how to blow their nose, put on their jacket, or wash their hands are just a few ideas. In addition, what are the expectations at home during transitions? Where are they expected to hang their coat when they get home?
Examples of Grace and Courtesy lessons:

shaking hands
using a quiet voice
how to get dressed
how to sit in a chair
basic table manners
saying please
saying thank you
how to offer someone some food
holding the door open for someone
how to fold a shirt, pants, or socks

This list is not exhaustive. The purpose of Grace and Courtesy showing the child how to meet their needs independently. The sky is the limit!

Culturally Responsive Grace & Courtesy

Recognizing our own biases regarding manners and common courtesies is crucial with Grace and Courtesy lessons. According to your cultural perspective, what may be appropriate may be deemed unfavorable or rude to another. Learning about your student's cultural backgrounds, home life, and traditions will benefit the classroom community as you will be more prepared to cultivate meaningful grace and courtesy lessons with respect to the cultural diversity of your students.

Examples of culturally inclusive grace and courtesy lessons:

How to pronounce an an unusual name

Please enjoy this short video on Grace & Courtesy in your home & class!