Alexander R.

Key

70708771

Penn Foster College ECE 230

Field Experience

405431

1st September 2022 

 The multicultural theme for the activities is ‘colorful culture in our classroom’. The concept is

for the students to understand that the many different diverse ethnicities that make up Hong

Kong are colorful, friendly and fun. These activities were designed and used for a K3 class of

mixed nationality students.

1. Language and literacy- There are many different languages in a classroom here -Chinese,

Korean, Japanese and English to name a few. The first activity was to find the words for

“hello” that were laminated and placed around the classroom and match to them to the

flags of the country that were arranged on the desk. The children had previously been

introduced to the words and flags and had fun trying to now match them up. The different

characters proved challenging to remember but the flags gave a good opportunity to use

related vocabulary.

2. Dramatic play- First we made passports by writing our names and drawing pictures of

ourselves. Then we role-played going to the airport to check-in and board the plane to a

country we had chosen. This worked very well as the target language was used and in a

natural setting. It gave us a sense of how we all come from different places and the

opportunity to discuss cultural aspects of the countries we were visiting.

3. Math- For the math activity, I used a graph chart idea and survey to find out where all the

different students were from in the class. We cut out flags and stuck them onto the chart

to denote the different countries. This worked well and we were able to use simple

number words to describe the results. However, it was a little bit easy and would have

benefit from being a bit more challenging.

4. Literature- Hong Kong has iconic Chinese New Year characters so this was the focus of

the literature activity. Using the story of the New Year characters, first we read the book
 in class and then mixed up cut-outs of each of the animals for each year. The students had

to match the character to the year based on pictures in the book. So, year of the dragon

had fire and a cave and year of the rat had an old house etc. This worked well as it was

challenging and colorful.

5. Art- Continuing on with the dragon theme, we printed parts of a dragon on A4 paper and

jumbled them up. Using the picture the students had to work collaboratively to paint the

correct pieces and make the large dragon picture. After, we stuck it together and it now

hangs on the wall. The students enjoyed the challenge of trying to pain the correct pieces

and match them up. It created a wonderful, colorful dragon.

6. Science- The school has very large tubes that stand up like tall test tubes. It presented the

opportunity to experiment with things that sink or float related to our theme. We made

small ‘Junk’ boats from paper and floated them on the top and then took gold foil and

wrapped stones to look like gold nuggets. These nuggets of course sank and along with

other items, we recorded the information on a sheet. The activity gave the opportunity to

discuss why the cultural things were special to Hong Kong.

7. Music and movement- Using different kinds of music we listened to short excerpts and

matched our movement to it. We used Chinese opera and the students decided to move

like cats. We used Korean K-pop and the students danced and we used Bollywood music

and tried to recreate the dances from there. This was a fun activity that the students

enjoyed because of the vibrancy and variety of the music.

8. Social Studies- Having asked the students to bring in photos of their grandparents before,

we used the photos to talk about where they came from and matched the photos to flags.

We then added the pictures to a map of the world we had drawn and talked about where
 the grandparents fit onto the map. We used language related to a cultural theme by

talking about the different countries and their culture.

9. Sensory Center- For the early mornings when the students first come in, the teachers

usually set up sensory areas. This provided the opportunity to add a cultural ‘station’ to

the sensory area. I designed a sensory bin to have different fruits and vegetable that you

can buy in the supermarket from the different countries. We had starfruit, dragon fruit,

mandarins, ochre, bok choi and others. We washed the fruit, dried it and talked about

where it came from and whether we like it or not. After which, we cut it up and sampled

it. This worked well as it gave lots of discussion points on the smells, shapes and tastes of

the fruit and vegetables.