A Toolkit for Bridging Gaps by

Read-Alouds Around the World

briamclaughlin — 2025-06-23 05:24:08 UTC

You can use stories like “Last Stop on Market Street” or “Eyes That Kiss in the Corners” to have your class participate in conversations about different cultures and perspectives. You can ask them, “What do you notice about their family? Their neighborhood?”

Around-the-World Weekly Theme

briamclaughlin — 2025-06-23 05:28:38 UTC

You can focus on a new country each week with a simple fact, song, and activity (like learning a greeting or snack from that country). It would be really cool to display a large map where students can place stickers for each country they have learned about!

Math Through Culture

briamclaughlin — 2025-06-23 05:32:45 UTC

You can introduce patterns and counting with cultural themes, such as African bead patterns or Chinese number systems! Using visuals and hands-on manipulatives will make it fun for the students!

Holiday Celebrations Across Cultures

briamclaughlin — 2025-06-23 05:34:23 UTC

You can teach about holidays like Lunar New Year, Diwali, or Día de los Muertos with crafts, music, and kid-friendly videos. This is a fun way to emphasize how families celebrate differently around the world!

Family Culture Posters

briamclaughlin — 2025-06-23 05:34:56 UTC

A fun idea is to have each student and their family create a small poster about their home traditions, food, or holidays. You could share these with the students during morning meetings throughout the month or even longer, depending on your class size!

Multilingual Morning Messages

briamclaughlin — 2025-06-23 05:35:06 UTC

You could start each day with greetings in different languages spoken in your classroom! For. example, “Hola,” “Bonjour,” and “Ni Hao”. You could also create some type of visual for these and repeat them all week! This is a fun way to start your day and get the students exposed to other languages that might not be commonly spoken in the community around them!

Student Choice Activities

briamclaughlin — 2025-06-23 05:35:17 UTC

Letting students choose between drawing, acting, building, or writing is a great way to show their understanding of the different cultures being taught to them. This also supports different learning preferences and backgrounds!

Bilingual Buddy System

briamclaughlin — 2025-06-23 05:35:27 UTC

You could pair ELL students with peers or staff who speak the same language! This helps students feel safe and supported while learning English! I think this is a great idea if you have an equal number of kids who speak English and Spanish! It would be fun for the students to bond with someone who speaks a different language from them!

Welcome Signs in Many Languages

briamclaughlin — 2025-06-23 05:35:51 UTC

Displaying “Welcome” in the languages spoken by your students and their families is fun for the kiddos to look at and spot out the language that they speak! Letting the students decorate and help pronounce them is a fun activity as well.

Book Corner with Representation

briamclaughlin — 2025-06-23 05:36:00 UTC

Filling your reading nook with picture books that reflect a wide range of identities, skin tones, and family types is a great way for your students to feel seen. Letting students take turns recommending favorites to be read as a group is fun too!

Kindness Circle Time

briamclaughlin — 2025-06-23 05:36:10 UTC

Circle time is a great time to model inclusive behavior and discuss topics like fairness, empathy, and being kind to those who are different from us! Start a conversation with your students!

Culture Share Days

briamclaughlin — 2025-06-23 05:36:21 UTC

Once a month, you can have a student bring in a song, dish, or story from their culture (with adult help if needed). The other students can ask questions or draw what they learned.

Family Read-Aloud Videos

briamclaughlin — 2025-06-23 05:36:48 UTC

You can ask families to record themselves reading a favorite story in English or their home language! You can play these for the class during story time!

Cultural Show-and-Tell

briamclaughlin — 2025-06-23 05:36:59 UTC

You can invite parents to school (or Zoom) to talk about a holiday or food tradition! Let your kids ask questions or share drawings about what they learned!

Community Helpers from Different Backgrounds

briamclaughlin — 2025-06-23 05:37:28 UTC

It would be fun to bring in speakers like firefighters, mail carriers, or artists from diverse backgrounds. Have your students prepare questions ahead of time so there is a steady conversation happening!

Parent Language Survey

briamclaughlin — 2025-06-23 05:37:37 UTC

You can send home a short survey asking about home languages and traditions. Use the responses to shape class projects and communication methods! It would also be fun to explain why you are doing this activity and how that specific parent influenced the activity.

briamclaughlin — 2025-06-23 05:57:19 UTC

Colorín Colorado. (n.d.). Using multimedia to promote vocabulary learning: Supporting English‑language learners in inclusive classrooms. https://www.colorincolorado.org/article/multidimensional-approach-vocabulary-instruction-supporting-english-language-learners

Colorín Colorado. (n.d.). How to create a welcoming classroom environment for ELLs. https://www.colorincolorado.org/article/how-create-welcoming-classroom-environment

Edutopia. (n.d.). 6 ways to make teaching more culturally responsive. https://www.edutopia.org/article/6-ways-make-teaching-more-culturally-responsive

Edutopia. (2021, June). 5 culturally responsive family engagement strategies. https://www.edutopia.org/article/5-culturally-responsive-family-engagement-strategies

Edutopia. (n.d.). How to get started with culturally responsive teaching. https://www.edutopia.org/article/getting-started-culturally-responsive-teaching

National Education Association. (n.d.). Developing a culturally responsible classroom. https://www.nea.org/resource-library/developing-culturally-responsible-classroom