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8 Easy Anti-Bias Activities for Your Home & Classroom

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Since we can’t always be in the classroom, here are eight easy anti-bias activities for your home and classroom! These Montessori-inspired activities will help equip your family and students with the tools necessary to identify and dismantle bias. Ready to get started? Let’s go!

Roots and Wings – Anti-Bias Activities Book

Roots and Wings by Stacey York is an amazingly resourceful and inspiring anti-bias curriculum book for your home and classroom.

Anti Bias Curriculum in the Home & Classroom

The author gives tangible guidance on bringing culture into early childhood education programs, including anti-bias themes and lessons across various areas. I highly recommend the book to teach anti-bias education to young children.

Anti Bias Curriculum in the Home & Classroom

Anti-Bias Themes  – How to Bring Culture into the Classroom

Mixing Playdough

Place four or five colors (choose multi-cultural colors such as in this playdough set) out for the kids to explore. Encourage them to mix the colors to create new colors. Encourage them to try to create a color that matches their skin.

Exploring Hair

Ask children to touch their hair and to look at their hair in the mirror. Ask them to describe it. Then show pictures of how people use hair to express themselves and their culture worldwide.

This Sesame Street clip: I Love Hair is an excellent conversation starter. Gather wigs, scarves, rubber bands, hair clips, turbans, and other items to create different hairstyles.

8 Anti-Bias Activities for the Home & Classroom

Everyday Images

Simply look at images from around the world and ask questions. Take time to either print out images and prepare cards or simply call your child over to your computer.

I found this great Pinterest board, “People/Faces from Around the World, ” a good resource. If you google “houses around the world” or “food around the world,” you will find good images for the exercise.

The book Children Just Like Me: A Unique Celebration of Children Around the World is excellent.

we are a diverse classroom for young children

Anti-Bias Activities & Curriculum Ideas

What is Different?

Gather images of African American, Hispanic, Euro-American, and Asian American children. Start with images that exemplify the most obvious differences, then move on to the more subtle differences. Kids may want to sort into similar and alike.

Encourage them to do so. Melissa & Doug’s Create-A-Face Pad is an excellent primary learning tool for discussing skin color differences.

Family

My Montessori instructor demonstrated a fabulous lesson introducing the concept of family to children. All you need is a basket, preferably with a cover or deep enough so you can reach into it and various “people.”

I purchased Pretend & Play Families. The figures are detailed and somewhat “real” looking. I bought Black, Asian, Hispanic, and People with Differing Abilities.

Start by asking the children what makes a family. Then introduce various families using these figures: “This is Joe. He is married to Bill. They have a daughter, Melissa.

They are a family.” or “This is Rosa. She lives with her grandmother, Helena. They are a family.” The possibilities are endless.

Mothers & Babies

This activity introduces similar features and similar cultural heritage. You need images of mothers & pictures of babies from around the world within various cultures, an image of a cat and her kittens, card stock, and a glue stick.

Prepare the cards and invite the child to match the mother and baby. Ask what is different about the mothers’ faces and why the child chose that mother to go with that particular child. Then show the image of the cat and her kittens. Explain how she is still their mother even though they might look different from her.

Easy Anti-Bias Activities for Your Home & Classroom

Crack the Egg

I saw this diversity activity on Kids Activities Blog and fell in love with it. Take a white and brown egg. Ask the children what they notice is the difference between the eggs.

When they answer the color, crack the egg open and show the children how the eggs are the same on the inside even though they look different on the outside.

Bread Tasting Party

This one might be my favorite. Go to the grocery and gather various “bread from around the world” such as naan, cornbread, tortillas, matzo, pita, scones, etc. Introduce the name of the bread and from which culture it originates. Then invite the children to taste it.

Talk about the traditions of those cultures. Maybe even make your bread together. I love this learning activity because it brings in the senses and is hands-on. If you don’t have access to the bread, seek images from a library book or the internet.

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Thank you for reading this post today!

I hope that we have inspired you!
Marnie

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