A year of cultural diversity

What better way to teach our kids about the world and raise their awareness than by celebrating multicultural and ethnic festivals and holidays from around the world?

We’re loving this 2016-2017 Diversity Calendar, a month-by-month, thorough collection of holidays around the world, put together by Becky Morales of Kid World Citizen.

In addition to festivals and holy days from major religions, it includes environmental days to celebrate and honor our planet, United Nations International Days such as “Global Youth Service Day“, and fun holidays that celebrate friendship, empathy and kindness.

So far, we have celebrated International Friendship Day, discovered World Humanitarian Day and enjoyed images and talked about Eid-al-Adha.

And I just learned that Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras and Nicaragua all celebrate their independence day today (September 15).

There’s something special about using such festive occasions to get the conversation started and discover different customs and traditions. It brings other cultures to life and children seem to get so much more out of it.

We all love traveling through food, stories and, of course, parties, don’t we?

I should add that the calendar is a great tool for learning, but sometimes it’s just plain fun too. For instance, the girls are looking forward to International Talk Like a Pirate Day (ahoy!) coming up soon (Sep 19), but I must confess I’m more excited about Oktoberfest (kicking off Sep 17). 😉

PS: This is not an affiliate link. I’m recommending it because we’ve really enjoyed it so far. I even bought copies for my girls’ teachers to help them create global and cultural awareness in their classrooms. 😉