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I am constantly trying to work towards giving my students more ownership over the classroom. This is hard for me, 1) because they are young and need a lot of guidance and 2) because I like to be in control (who doesn't!?). However, an area that I think I have been fairly successful in giving the children a lot of choice and ownership over their learning is in play centers. I simply provide the materials and allow them to choose where and how to play. I was privileged to receive a grant this Fall to purchase multicultural food, dress up clothes, and baby dolls for my dramatic play center.

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I love these photos of families around the world that I have hanging across one wall of my classroom. For example, I have a Nepali child in my classroom and I have included a photo of a family in Nepal. I hope this helps my children from minority cultures feel represented and proud and the children from the majority culture develop an appreciation of other cultures.

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I believe that learning needs to be meaningful to young children. Therefore, in teaching the alphabet, I always start with the names of the children and the names of their friends. They pick up on the ABCs so much more quickly when the letters are meaningful to them.

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I realized after I had left my classroom for the weekend that this is not the best photo to reflect the room arrangement, but I have flexible seating, try to create a warm and welcoming environment, and I have all classroom labels in both English and Spanish.

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I am required to follow the Texas PreK Guidelines and I am expected to follow, with some flexibility, the district pacing guide for learning targets. However, I have a lot of freedom to implement the learning targets as I choose. For example, for the target "I can use a wide variety of materials in my art", I had students create self portraits using realistic skin color paper and we read "The Colors of Us". In this way, I try to celebrate the diversity within my classroom and promote acceptance.

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I try to be intentional about displaying a wide variety of books featuring students of various backgrounds. We also write stories together, featuring photos of the students in the classroom. So at least if they do not see themselves in a traditional story book they will see themselves in the stories we publish together.