At BestStart Palmerston North in Children's Preschool were are working on ensuring our environment reflects the variety of cultures we have in our community.
We do this in a range of ways, initially through engaging with families so we can develop an understanding about what culture means to them and how they celebrate it—through food, language, music, traditions, or stories.
We have had families share kai, photos, stories about their celebrations and extended whānau visiting us. Creating an environment that truly reflects the diverse cultures in our community is helping our children feel valued with a strong sense of belonging.
Further to our practice we utilise our environment to show and share our different cultures. We do this through the use of posters, artwork, and photographs that represent the cultures in our center - these include our kaiako too. We learn languages from other countries and the children are currently enjoying learning to count in Tagalog - one of many official languages of the Philippines.
We greet children and their families in their own language and use phrases during the day. This is an area we are still developing. Our environment shows art work and experiences that have been completed during cultural festivals and children are encouraged to share their personal experiences with us during the day - one of our children danced to traditional music wearing her traditional dress for a local retirement village.
Through these stories kaiako are learning alongside ākonga. As part of our current review we are exploring how we incorporate our local cultures into our curriculum areas so it is embedded naturally and authentically. We look forward to developing these practices further.