Celebrating Diversity - Our Family Tree Project

Dear families,  

As someone who grew up in a “United Nations family”, UN Day has always been a day I think worthy of some recognition.  Our families are all so unique!  The fact that we are all so diverse and come together so happily every day is truly amazing and well worth celebrating.  In honor of “United Nations Day” on October 24th, we will focus on our families and the cultures represented by them.

1. FAMILY TREE: In our Global Perspectives class, we have been learning about family trees and our final task for this unit is to create a family tree and then present it to the class. The challenge for this unit has been “communication”, so I am looking for everyone to be able to talk to the class about who is in their families. Ideally use pictures of people and label with how your child calls them and who they are (eg. Yaya - great grandmother / mom’s grandma), rather than just names, so that your child can easily identify who is in it. Since we are focusing on multicultural communities, please also include a flag to show where a family member is from. I recommend sticking to family members that your child is most connected with. The important thing is to work with your child on this and have fun doing it! Please take time to practice, so your child knows who is on their family tree.  I recommend using a large sheet of construction paper (approx 12 x 18) - which I am happy to provide. Please only use one side - I know that this can be challenging, but I like to put these up in the classroom. These are ‘flexibly’ due starting next Wednesday, October 8th (flexibly, meaning that they will be happily accepted throughout the month of October). Please let me know if you have any questions.

2. FAMILY PRESENTATION, I would also like to invite parents to come and present with their children. It could be a fun opportunity to visit the class and help your child - though your child must talk about the family tree him/herself, you are welcome to talk about everything else. For this presentation, I encourage talking about favorite celebrations/holidays, traditions, and food. Any visual aides are recommended (pictures, special outfits, music,accessories) and I think even bringing food (one of your child’s favorites) could be a fun way for this age to learn something new about another culture or just about your family! If your family is most connected to St. Croix or to a particular State, that’s great too! We can learn so much from each other! I look forward to everyone participating. Last year we tried different foods from the Philippines, Palestine, Puerto Rico, to name just a few (not all places started with a P either )! Please send me 3 best times (days of the week & times - next week until the week of November 18th) and I will schedule you in for a slot. While parent participation is not a requirement, I highly recommend doing this, as the pride and joy that your children feel when you do something special in the classroom is absolutely priceless. Thank you!