Super Starter Projects that Foster Multiculturalism
Emergent bilinguals have diverse cultural and linguistic backgrounds that are an essential part of their identity. To effectively serve them, it is important to foster an educational environment that embraces multiculturality and multilingualism. Below are 4 Super Starter Projects that will help emergent bilinguals explore their heritage while practicing their language skills.
How to find the following projects in Renzulli Learning:
- 1. Under the Teach Tab, click Projects
- 2. On the Projects page, click Project and then click Super Start Project
- 3. Locate the desired Project and Add it to your projects or assign it to your students
- or
- 1. Go to Enrichment Activities and click Search.
- 2. Type in the title of the Super Starter Project (Or insert the title here if you'd rather). Then Click Search to bring up the project
Super Starter Projects:
- 1. PSP Learn About People Who Have Made a Difference
Grade Levels: 6-9, 10-12
This project gives you the opportunity to read about the lives of high-achieving individuals. Choose five to ten individuals to research. They might be people you know and admire, or people who have something in common with each other, such as their field of work or their time period. Formulate research questions, and take notes of answers that you find in the course of your research. Your product options are to write imagined goals and plans for your subjects as if they were eighth graders, or to write a formal research paper. You can also enter your work in a history contest.* Slightly modify the project instructions to encourage students to focus on their heritage background.
2. Family Traditions
Grade Levels: K-2 Complete this project to learn more the culture, traditions, and origin of your family. You will also explore some different cultures around the world. As a final product, you can draw a picture showing what you have learned about your family’s culture and traditions; or you can make a family tree that goes back to your grandparents, including full names, countries of origin, and pictures that show different traditions.
3. Create a Museum Exhibit on a Topic of Interest- Grade Levels: 6-9
This project will acquaint you with museum exhibits from around the world. You will virtually visit exhibits and collections from different types of museums such as modern art, history, natural history, and science museums. You will discover why so many people appreciate what museums have to offer. Working through this project will help you think about what makes an exhibit interesting to you and what themes interest you the most. Then, as a final product, you will choose a theme and create a real exhibit, a drawing of an exhibit, or a PowerPoint presentation of an exhibit that you can share with others.
* Slightly modify the project instructions to encourage students to focus on their heritage background.
4. Awesome ABCs- Grade Levels: PreK, K-2
The focus of this project is for you to illustrate and write your own ABC book. First, you need to take a look at several good books that illustrate the alphabet. Next you can brainstorm and choose a theme—such as animals or sports—for your own book. Then make the book! Use your artistic ability to illustrate each letter with something whose name begins with that letter, and then you may write about your pictures.
* Slightly modify the project instructions to encourage students to include words in their home language and make this a bilingual ABC book.
* To modify for 3-5 levels, ask students to create a bilingual picture dictionary instead of an ABC book.