nd cooking materials, photos, and maps that represent the cultures and countries of your classroom family.
- Invite families to share the arts and crafts, photos, and maps of their culture. Ask them to come and share a special skill or interest with the children.
Provide stimulation and challenge
- A wide variety of open-ended, multi-sensory materials make a strong statement to children that you respect and appreciate their individual learning styles.
- Keep in mind the need for materials that interest and inspire visual, auditory, and tactile/kinesthetic learners.
- "Change the variable" by adding just one material in a center periodically so that children have new items to experiment with and use. Centers can become too familiar and predictable. By adding just one new thing to a center, you can challenge children to think of new ways to work there.
Inject beauty every day
- Add one piece of beauty every day to your classroom setting. Studies show that the aesthetics of color, beauty, and nature in the classroom have a strong, positive impact on children's behavior.
- Try creating a space for beauty in the room. Each day, provide beauty in the form of nature (a plant, leaf, flower) or art (a picture, photo, sculpture, quilt, box).
- Keep clutter away. Children can be overstimulated by messy piles of papers, toys, and books.