Developing Cultural Self Awareness with Literacy and Art
My projects need a variety of art supplies, such as multicultural paper, crayons, paints and books to engage students in meaningful, cultural activities.
This project is part of the Black History Month celebration because it supports a Black teacher or a school where the majority of the students are Black.
I teach 2nd grade to 21 diverse and exciting students. Each year I try to create culturally meaningful and creative art activities that my students can engage in throughout the year. Art allows them to express themselves and let their imaginations run wild.
Art in the classroom gives me a great time in which to teach ways to share and socialize. It helps develop their language and problem solving skills. Since my students primarily come from homes of poverty, their experiences with different types of art supplies is limited. My students deserve to enjoy something more than just paper and standard crayons. Often students of color will use a brown or black crayon for skin color. I would love them to be able to go through a box of multicultural crayons and find a color that matches their skin.
We spend a lot of time reading and telling stories about their lives and culture. I would like my students to have the opportunity to be able to create art activities that represent who they are culturally. I would like to engage my students in activities that promote pride in who they are. Using books like, "The Skin I'm", "In, Skin Again", and "Black is Brown is Tan".
I hope to engage my student in conversation about culture and race. While they are engaged in an art activity I hope to teach my class to have similar conversations with peers. I would like to see them discuss their likenesses and differences as a positive aspect of who they are. I hope to give them skills to develop friends based on their commonality as well as show tolerance for each others differences.
"The Colors of Us", "Nappy Hair and Cornrolls" will be used as a bridge for students to embrace their skin color and hair texture as well as that of others. I wants students to have access to multicultural crayons, paper and paint that they can use when drawing pictures of themselves and others. If you help to stock our art closet you will give my class the opportunity to work with multicultural paint, paper and crayons as well as sponges, scratch art, glitter glue, sun catchers, and pom poms. I appreciate your help in building a culturally artistic community in our classroom.
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As a teacher-founded nonprofit, we're trusted by thousands of teachers and supporters across the country. This classroom request for funding was created by Mrs. Ferro and reviewed by the DonorsChoose team.
