Bedrooms Around the World

Central Idea: 
Learning about similarities and differences between cultures can help us understand ourselves. 

Lines of Inquiry: 

• Similarities and differences within and between cultures 
• How to investigate cultures 
• How our thinking about 'others' can change 

Learner Profile: Open-minded, Reflective 

Attitudes: Respect, Appreciation, Curiosity

During this unit, my second graders and I have learned that everyone has a culture and that culture shapes how we see the world, ourselves, and others. 

We started off recognizing the aspects of culture that are most visible, such as food, language, and clothing, but now we're recognizing that others are not as visible, such as our values, assumptions, and priorities.

Children have been exploring how our interaction with the environment and others shapes one's culture. 

One of the activities has been to look at the similarities and differences of children's bedrooms around the world. Children sorted the bedrooms into their own categories like: Beautiful/Not Beautiful, Poor/Not Poor, Toys/No Toys, Clean/Dirty, Comfortable/Not Comfortable.

I asked my students to continue the conversation at home with these questions:

• What photographs interested or surprised you most? Why? 
• What questions did those photos raise for you? 
• What can these photos tell you about the lives of the people pictured? 
• What do you think they can’t tell you?

Some rather insightful comments have come up because of this activity: 

• "It doesn't seem fair that we have such nice bedrooms just because our families have money." 
• "I would be very sad if I had that bedroom."
• "Why do some children have more or less than others?"
• "I'm lucky to be born into my family."
• "What if I was that child?"
• "I think having too much in your bedroom or too much stuff in your house doesn't make someone happy. Just because some of the bedrooms don't have much it doesn't mean that those kids are not good or that we are better."

Our Family Culture

Central Idea: 
Learning about similarities and differences between cultures can help us understand ourselves. 

Lines of Inquiry: 

• Similarities and differences within and between cultures 
• How to investigate cultures 
• How our thinking about 'others' can change 

Learner Profile: Open-minded, Reflective 
Attitudes: Respect, Appreciation, Curiosity

As part of our unit of inquiry, we have been looking at culture and what better way to do that than by incorporating the families’ presence in the classroom environment. It's so important to set an atmosphere of comfort, safety, and family. I believe the way you make your class feel is how they will respond while in your classroom. 

adding students' family pictures helps to make it their classroom too

A simple way we've tried to make our classroom more comforting and homey for the children is for them to see their family photos displayed in the classroom.  Families were asked to email a family photo to add to our window. Each student was given the chance to explain who was in the photo and answer questions about their family. Not only did they enjoy sharing about their family, it gave everyone a common ground to start from when discussing how families are a part of our cultural identity.

I had my students further the school to home discussion by asking their families the following questions: What is your favorite family tradition?

Visiting the Art Museum

The field trip to the art museum allowed students to gain an important opportunity to add depth to their Unit of Inquiry study on cultures. Students were asked to recount and reflect on what they experienced. What was impressive was the empathy shown by second graders with statements like:  

• “I can imagine what life was like for people a long time ago, it looks more difficult than how we live today" - A
• “When I looked at the similarities and differences of my culture and the culture in the painting, I tried to imagine what those people were thinking," - P
• “I think people from different cultures can have different thoughts about the same thing," - T

We try and integrate across subjects and have specialists involved in the unit of inquiry. The art teacher joined us on the field trip. Prior to the trip, our team planned with the art teacher and she did a pre-visit to the museum and chose several art pieces that would tie into our unit. 

School to home connections are important for families to further the discussions in class. Here were the questions that I sent to my families to ask their children: Which was your favourite painting and why? What information did the paintings give you about Vietnamese culture? What is the SAME as your culture? What is DIFFERENT to your culture?

Moon Festival

Once a year on a full moon, according to the lunar calendar, Moon Festival is celebrated. Families can celebrate on the day by watching the moon, eating moon cakes, and eating special new year home made foods.

Performances at the school's festival included singing and dancing by the Vietnamese language students.