Diverse day care: 5 Ways to Emphasize Diversity in Your Child Center’s Classroom

5 Ways to Emphasize Diversity in Your Child Center’s Classroom

This post was originally published Feb. 2, 2022, and was updated with new information on Feb. 7, 2023. Emphasizing diversity in your child center is vital to ensuring that all people who walk through your door feel seen and valued, and that students learn about other cultures and people with backgrounds different than their own.

Classrooms that emphasize diversity expose students to new perspectives. These perspectives often lead to deeper discussions. If you incorporate diversity in the classroom, you’ll help prepare your students for the world.

Diversity in the classroom not only means understanding that each student brings unique experiences to a classroom, but also exploring these differences to enrich learning.

Let’s take a look at five ways to emphasize diversity into your child care center’s classrooms.

1. Get to Know Your Students

Ask questions!

Where do their families come from? What’s unique about their backgrounds? What learning styles suit their individual personalities best? 

Here are a few ideas to do that:

• Make the time: Be intentional and schedule a few minutes each day to meet with your students. This will give you the chance to learn about them. It will also help your students learn to trust you, making it easier for them to open up and share.
• Include your teachers: Diversity in the classroom should be a center-wide initiative. Get your teachers involved and ask them to get to know your students, too. 
• Act on your insights:  Once you have a few insights into who they are, plan lessons and activities that cater to their unique personalities.

2. Adjust Your Center’s Curriculum

Use your knowledge of the children in your care to assess, and possibly change, your center’s lesson plans. Don’t be afraid to adjust your center’s curriculum to better incorporate diversity.

Here are some teacher resources that you might find helpful, from Western Governors University:

• https://www.adl.org/
• https://www.nationalgeographic.org/education/
• https://www.census.gov/schools/
• https://www. tolerance.org/
• https://thewonderment.com/
• https://www.penpalschools.com/index.html
• https://dp.la/
• https://www.facinghistory.org/
• https://artsandculture.google.com/
• https://storycorps.org/
• https://www.writetheworld.com/

Also consider stocking your rooms with books celebrating different cultures. Check out this list of children’s picture books that celebrate diversity.

3. Hire Diverse Teachers

Kids generally connect best with those they identify with most.

Developing a racially diverse workforce has long been cited as crucial to improving student performance, especially among Black and Latino youth. 

So do your best to hire teachers with diverse backgrounds. And for all your hires, make sure they’re committed to inclusive classrooms.

4. Re-Evaluate Your Center’s Activities

Next, take a look at the entertainment you plan for your kids. Can you adjust these fun activities to better incorporate diversity in the classroom? Probably!

One idea is buying games that are popular in other countries.

Do a little research to find fun activities that originally come from the cultures your students represent. Then make them available at your daycare center.

Teaching Tolerance is an organization that helps teachers and schools educate children and youth to be active participants in a diverse democracy. Check out its free online resources, and see if it could be a fit for professional development at your child care center.

5. Celebrate Diverse Cultures

When working and learning with people from a variety of backgrounds and cultures in the classroom, students gain a more comprehensive understanding of the subject matter. It also teaches students how to use their own strengths and points of view to contribute in a diverse working environment, according to the Drexel University School of Education.

If you want to incorporate diversity in the classroom, adjusting your center’s curriculum and re-evaluating its activities are good places to start … but celebrating diverse cultures on a regular basis is a way to go further. Here are some ideas:

• Teach Kids About Different People Groups: February is Black History Month. Teach your kids about Harriet Tubman, Miles Davis and Martin Luther King Jr. March is Women’s History Month. Teach your kids about Susan B. Anthony and Rosa Parks.
• Host Culturally Themed Events: Invite your students and their families to your center for a full day of fun and entertainment. Then ask them to bring a dish to share that represents their unique backgrounds.

How Procare Can Help

When multiple backgrounds are represented, your students will feel more comfortable, learn alternate perspectives and become better prepared for the world that they’ll be asked to participate in one day.

Helping manage your lesson plans is one way that Procare Solutions can save you time so you can focus on interacting with your students and achieving your goals.

With preloaded state and Montessori learning standards, Procare makes it easier than ever to create child care lesson plans that help support the highest possible learning outcomes for your students. You can customize assessments, track student progress, save and manage your lessons and even share lesson plans for at-home learning.

And you have the option to add an all-digital curriculum designed for young learners into your classroom.

Procare Early Learning is seamlessly embedded into the Procare online application, gving teachers everything they need to provide high-quality instruction for infants to pre-K at their fingertips.

You get:

• 52 weeks of lesson plans for five age groups – infant, young toddler, older toddler, preschool and pre-kindergarten
• Over 4,000 daily and weekly activities, with material lists, learning support, social-emotional development and at-home connection newsletters to engage parents
• Lesson plans and daily activities are presented in a developmental progression
• Learning areas including STEAM, language and literacy, physical development, music and movement, cognitive and interactive reading
• Training is built in, with tips and tools teachers can use in real time

Request a Demo

Request a demo and talk with one of our friendly Procare experts to get a tailored child care solution for the unique needs of your business.

We know the business of child care. For more than 30 years we’ve been guiding child care professionals just like you to help stay connected and in control.

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How to Promote Diversity in Child Care

As adults, we can actively seek out knowledge and information that makes us better equipped to form meaningful connections with other people from different backgrounds. However, kids rely on adults to instill these skills and a sense of respect for diversity. This is true for all adults in a student’s life, including family, teachers, coaches and staff.

Unfortunately, it can be challenging to promote diversity in a child care setting. Students aren’t often equipped with the skills necessary to address diversity tactfully. This can lead to unintentional disrespect or insults. Moreover, many child care programs lack a diverse staff and student body. Regardless of the challenges faced by promoting diversity in your program, it remains a vital task.

Unsure of where to start? This guide will breakdown everything you need to know about how to respect and promote diversity in your child care program.

What is Diversity and Why is it Important?

Diversity is a term that encompasses all the aspects of identity that make an individual unique. It includes characteristics such as age, sexual orientation, gender, nationality, culture, disability and race. The promotion of diversity is an effort to enhance and increase diversity in a given environment.

There are many ways to achieve this goal, but it starts with welcoming people from different backgrounds and respecting their identity. These two foundations are critical to the facilitation of meaningful relationships and connections between all individuals. However, meaningful connections aren’t the only advantages of diversity.

Diversity offers a range of benefits in any setting. For kids, these benefits are a bit more distinct. The benefits of diversity in your child care program include:

• Increased creativity and innovation: In a diverse setting, students can leverage their classmates’ different backgrounds and experiences to find creative solutions to problems.
• Nurturing empathy: A known empathy gap arises when children and teens meet others outside of those that share fundamental aspects of their identity. Exposing students to diversity enables them to overcome this empathy gap sooner rather than later.
• Preparation for future diverse settings in adulthood: Our students don’t stay young forever. As they grow, they will likely encounter an increased number of people with different backgrounds, especially as they go on to college or enter the workforce. Respecting diversity provides students with crucial preparation for the future.

Overall, diversity is essential and unavoidable. Understanding the value of different perspectives, backgrounds, and experiences can be challenging for students. However, it’s a critical skill, one that can lead to lifelong friendships and mutual respect.

Promoting Diversity in a Child Care Program

Diversity has always been a treasured aspect of America’s portrait. The U.S. is home to unique individuals spanning a wide range of cultures, ethnicities, nationalities and more. However, the idea of America as a “melting pot” of diversity fails to acknowledge the challenges to diversity that the country needs to work to overcome.

Current efforts to promote diversity and inclusion have become a driving force of change across the country. Child care programs are working to implement changes that demonstrate their dedication to promoting diversity and inclusion. However, it can be difficult to choose strategies that are effective and positive. Here are some of the most effective ways to promote diversity in a child care program if you need guidance.

Create an Environment That Reflects Diversity

Child care environments encompass everything from the posters on the wall to materials on shelves. All of these materials should be carefully chosen to promote healthy development, learning and diversity. However, it can be hard to find materials that promote diversity. So, you’ll need to take some additional time to find the best materials.

If you’re unsure about whether your learning environment reflects and promotes diversity, there are many tools available to help. This worksheet provides an excellent questionnaire to help child care managers and staff determine whether they have made a significant effort to create an environment that promotes diversity.

Choose Activities that Promote Diversity

There are many ways to teach students about diversity. Some of the best (and fun!) ways to teach diversity is by creating activities that help kids experience it. While you may not be able take a class trip to another country, you can make it your mission to promote a curriculum that includes learning about other cultures and peoples. Here are some activities that offer great strategies on how to promote diversity.

• Storytime: When stocking your classroom with books, be sure to include diverse book selections. Start by looking for books with characters of color from different backgrounds, or that explore different cultures. This website provides a detailed list of culturally diverse books and where to find them. Start your search there!
• Celebrate Student Diversity: Work with parents to help children create a presentation of their culture. This allows children to learn about their peers’ different cultures.
• Set Up a Travel Station: Specifically for young children, the idea of a global world filled with many different cultures and peoples can be difficult to grasp. You can help young students understand this better by creating a global travel station where children can “visit” a different country and learn about its culture. Update this station with new countries throughout the year.

Acknowledge and Respect Cultural Diversity

Acknowledging and respecting diversity is an integral aspect of diversity and inclusion efforts, even in your child care program. A person’s culture can greatly impact their lives, including how they dress, social interactions, holiday celebrations and various practices. Teaching  about cultural diversity can help kids better understand and respect another person’s culture.

Reaching out to families and the local community can help to promote cultural diversity in child care. These volunteers can give information about the different cultures represented in the students and staff. With this information, you can work to acknowledge and respect cultural diversity within your program. As a start, be sure to include celebrations that go beyond traditional American holidays. Teach children about Kwanzaa, Eid, Hanukkah and Christmas!

Key Takeaways

While child care programs might not seem like a hotbed of diversity celebrations, there’s no reason they shouldn’t be! Taking the time to educate and inform kids about different cultures and the diversity that exists today is critical.

This education helps to nurture their sense of respect and understanding of people from different backgrounds. Moreover, it can give students an outlet to explore various cultures outside of their own. Though it can be challenging, respecting and promoting diversity has a host of benefits. The most important is laying the foundation for a global citizen.

Discover the Secrets to Simpler Child Care Program Management!

Download our free eBook with expert tips that will not only help you improve your child care program, but show you how to simplify its management, so you and your team can enjoy a much needed breather. 

Does the skin value diversity? Day care, night care

Does the skin appreciate variety? Day care, night care

Traditionally, skin care is divided into day and night, and cosmetologists beg not to confuse night and day jars with cream. Why?

The fact is that the skin has its own biorhythms, and it is more convenient for it to absorb assets at certain times of the day. Therefore, all regeneration serums work twice as efficiently if applied at night: the body recovers faster while resting.

“Does everyone need day and night skincare or is one of them missing?” is a common question, so let’s delve into the secrets of cosmetic care.

Day Skin Care

The main principle of skin care during the day is to maintain a healthy microflora, optimal hydration, protection from UV rays and radiation from gadgets. As it turned out, an excess of “blue” radiation also depresses the epidermis, as well as solar.

To avoid the appearance of pigmentation and premature wrinkles, it is useful to familiarize the skin with moisturizers based on hyaluronic acid and its derivatives already in adolescence.

In 2018, cosmetic concerns evaluated high molecular weight sodium hyaluronate, making an unexpected discovery. It turned out that the gel on such a large molecular polymer retains toxins on the skin, inhibiting their penetration into the depths of the skin. High Molecular Weight Hyaluronic Acid is an excellent daytime treatment for skin health, it detoxifies, absorbs heavy metals and protects against the aggression of UV rays.

T.S. 3D-hyaluronate, which contains sodium hyaluronate with different molecular weight (high, medium, ultra-low), is almost a dream of our skin. This 3D/4D blend is commonly found in Asian BB creams and really makes skin look and feel great.

Day care must-have actives

Jojoba oil, essentially a vegetable wax, has long established itself as the optimal oil phase of emulsions.

Silicones and mineral oil, after a powerful PR campaign, have become almost outcasts of cosmetics, and yet their wines are only of synthetic origin. Silicones (dry and flowable) are inert components that cannot penetrate the skin or hair in any way. And even more so, harm them. But they protect perfectly from the “blue” glow of gadgets and screens, and the tactile characteristics of cosmetics are clearly improved. In general, components as components.

Antioxidants and photoprotective ingredients help prevent early wrinkles. Coenzyme Q10, Vitamin C and physical UV filters are critical to daily skincare.

Actives for collagen synthesis are niacinamide, peptides, CO2 extracts and essential oils with their low molecular weight. Isoflavones are welcome in both day and night care, take note.

Night skin care

Since the body likes to rest at night, it is not necessary to overload its largest organ. The skin is a giant self-regulating organ, so you don’t have to do all the work for it. Let it work in the usual mode, now we will explain why it is necessary.

The myriad of microbes that function in the epidermis are responsible for moisturizing: this environment independently synthesizes hyaluronic acid, protects against infections and ensures smoothness of the skin. When a harmful scout bacteria appears, the skin microbiome analyzes and produces an antibiotic in just 4 hours, and if you do not interfere with the functioning of the skin, then it will always be healthy and clean. Excessively aggressive washing can damage this “skin” factory for the development of your personal (optimal, individual, ideal) remedy from hyaluronic acid and probiotics.

Hence the conclusion: chemical peels are carried out without fanaticism, preferably in autumn. In night care, we use mild acidic tonics with a small percentage of AHA, let them moisturize our skin along the way.

In night care, cleansing care plays the main role, which can be divided into a couple of stages to achieve the perfect result without damaging the water-fat mantle. Erno Laszlo’s Japanese Cleansing or Cleansing Method has proven itself over the years as the best cosmetic treatment.

Night care must-have cosmetic assets

Meadowfoam oil is of great interest to cosmeceuticals and dermatologists. Since 2018, it has been increasingly appearing in cosmetics for the face and body. Surprisingly, but true: penny oil is not subject to oxidation and rancidity, which is why it reliably retains toxins, preventing them from entering the depths of the skin.

Evening primrose oil is soft, gentle, easily absorbed and restores the water-fat mantle of the skin. More from night cosmetics is also not required.

Antioxidants like resveratrol and vitamins C and E protect the skin and its fragile collagen fibers.

Moisturizing actives, chief among which is hyaluronic acid, make the skin softer, fresher, smoother. It is not a sin to introduce bamboo or soy isoflavones, organic acids and snow algae powder into the night cream.

Peptide support never got in the way, especially if the skin is mature. It is at night that we advise you to apply serums: the skin rests and restores its resource while you sleep peacefully.

Recipes for creating creams and serums are still in the “Recipes” section, and fresh information about modern cosmetics – natural and effective – constantly appears on the blog.

Rules for skin care at night

The time from sunset to sunrise is considered magical, and it is especially important for those who want to maintain youth and beauty for a long time. Specially developed night cosmetics allow you to provide intensive skin care and restore its elasticity. To achieve the best result, cosmetologists recommend using a day cream during the day and a night cream at night.

Night skin care

What is the difference between a day cream and a night cream? This question is often asked by those who prefer to buy cosmetics from one line. Sometimes the composition of the night cream is not too different from the day cream formula. However, upon careful study, it becomes clear that the proportions and amounts of active substances are different. Night skin care is an important moment for everyone who wants to look 20 at 30. Cosmetics for the night are selected depending on the type of skin and the task that needs to be solved: nutrition, hydration, regeneration, elimination of irritation. The action of cosmetics intended for application before bedtime occurs only in the absence of direct sunlight: under the influence of bright rays, some components are destroyed, while others can even cause harm by increasing the photosensitivity of skin cells.

How to choose a night cream

The category of night creams includes products of different composition and effects. The following types of night creams are most often found in the catalogs of well-known cosmetic brands:

• regenerating;
• regenerating;
• soothing;
• nourishing;
• moisturizing;
• anti-aging.

The variety is so great that many women don’t know which night cream to choose. However, there are several general rules that will help you understand the types of night cosmetics and get exactly what you need.

First of all, it is important to define the goal you want to achieve. It can be an improvement in complexion, getting rid of wrinkles, increasing elasticity, rejuvenation. To increase elasticity, you should choose products containing retinol. It allows you to increase the elasticity of the skin. Anti-aging creams containing a whole complex of substances that prevent aging will help against wrinkles. Hydration is promoted by formulas with vitamin E, provitamin B5, essential oils, glycerin. The presence of antioxidants and thermal water can be an additional advantage when choosing.

Another important point is the absence of components to which you are allergic, as well as substances that cosmetologists consider not very beneficial for the skin: mineral oils, ethylene and propylene glycol, parabens. Additional selection criteria are consistency and aroma. Beauty treatments are meant to be enjoyed. In addition, if the smell of a product is unpleasant for you, this may indicate that the product is not suitable for you. Many series are now being produced with pleasant floral, fruity or citrus notes, compositions with the smell of herbs. So be sure to ask how this or that night cream smells. If you find it difficult to figure out which cream to use at night, it is better to consult a beautician. He will tell you the composition that is best for your skin type and age. There is another important rule: until the age of thirty, the skin very rarely needs intensive nutrition and specialized care, so young girls can limit themselves to daily skin care products.

How to use night cosmetics

Branded European-made cosmetics undergo strict quality control, so you will have a chance to acquire a real elixir of youth and health. However, it is not enough to find a suitable product – it must be used correctly, otherwise the effect will be almost invisible.

Not everyone knows how to properly use a night face cream, so you should listen to the recommendations of experts. The first rule is never apply a skin care product on uncleaned skin, and even more so – over makeup. First, do make-up removal, then use a special cleaning serum, and only after that you can open the cherished jar of night cream.

Rule number two is about product application. You should not follow the principle of “the more – the better”, otherwise you will have to face the problem of clogged pores, and it will be difficult for the skin to get enough oxygen. The layer must be thin enough.

Apply your night care product no later than 20-30 minutes before bedtime, otherwise half of the valuable substances will go to your pillow. A nightly moisturizing face mask is very useful, which is recommended to be used twice a week. If possible, buy products of the same brand: night and day creams will enhance each other’s action.