Celebrate Diversity in the Classroom, Curriculum Ideas

Recently we ran a contest for a rug give away. We asked teachers to tell us how they would use the World Character Classroom Rug in their curriculum. The World Character rug design was created from a collaboration of our best designers and has easily risen to the top of sales charts for the multitude of lessons that can be taught from it. From positive character traits, to human diversity, global awareness and geography. From this rug design we have spun off other designs that also promote diversity and good virtues.

It was unbelievably hard to choose a winner for this rug, because every teacher had such wonderful ideas of how they would use it in their curriculum. Below are some of the great ideas that were shared with us. These curriculum ideas are not only good for the World Character rug, but also for these other rug designs which also promote friendship and community in a diverse world:

Friends Together Friendship Rug

Friends Full Circle Rug

Friends Semi-Circle Rug

Our World of Peace Globe Rug

People Around the World Kid's Rug

World Greeting Children's Rug

1. I enjoy promoting diversity in my classroom. The children holding hands around the globe is a great visual to spur conversations about embracing differences of people from all cultures. 
   
2. We always look to promote cultural proficiency with our students and celebrate everyone’s diverse backgrounds! Our EL students love to look at the world map to locate their home country and share something special about where they are from.
3. My fourth graders would use the rug daily to learn about different cultures of the world. We would also use the rug to learn about and locate the continents and oceans of the world. The rug would be extremely motivational and encouraging. 
4. In our “All About Me Unit,” I would have the students compare themselves to the characters on the rug and we would read books about other cultures. The positive virtue words will be added to our classroom rules and we would have conversations of how to be kind and accepting of each other. At the end of our unit, the students will make their own hand prints out of construction paper add their hand prints and names to the wall by the rug with the virtue that is best exemplified by them throughout the month.
5. This rug would help to teach my PreK students that even though we all look different on the outside we are all the same on the inside.  We should treat each other with respect and we should treat each other the way we want to be treated.  I could use the carpet as a visual for the students to share how we are different and the same. 
   
6. I teach first grade. In my district we put an emphasis on social/emotional learning and how to be a kind and caring member of our community. This rug would go great with our message to students and be helpful in teaching what it means to be kind, loving, and caring to everyone. 

This was the winning entry:

One activity I would do with the rug is a hand print walk…I will have the children start on a hand and then move hand to hand while music plays. When the music stops, one by one they will read their hand trait. They can share examples and give comments to their friends about how they demonstrate the trait. This will continue to be played throughout the year and as the students demonstrate these traits, it will be celebrated. It will be wonderful to hear and see their progress of understanding and demonstrating these wonderful virtues that foster acceptance, empathy, and positivity in the classroom environment.