Multi cutural and disabilty help!

[Dingledel]

I work in a very small pre-school and we have just had our Ofsted inspection. One of the things mentioned was the fact that we didn't have enough evidence of supporting awareness of multi cutural and disabilty.

We have various dolls, puppets, costumes and books but due to size not everything is out all of the time. Not sure as to what was actually out as I wasn't in the day of inspection.

I am trying to come up with some ideas to help cover this area and any advice, links, ideas would be much appreciated. Finance is a BIG issue for us at the moment so costs would need to be kept to a minimum.

So far I have though of increasing the amount of resources, dolls, puppets, costumes, books etc but again cost is a major factor.

I would like to do some sort of "circle of friends around the world" mobile, this is something I wanted to do a while back but has never materialised.

Perhaps make some masks, different skin tones, head wear??

I have also thought about a more "hands on" approach to this, rather than a chat at circle time and a craft activity I would like to incorporate music, dance, perhaps even make our own versions of musical instruments, costumes.....??? (visions of sari's or maracas floating round my head.)

Any ideas please?

[Ruthierhyme]

Hi, sounds like a mission a few ideas ..

Could you ask your Early years dept if they have any loan services for cultural items.
Do you keep a note of the book titles that support multi cultural awareness and those that depict positive images of disability.
Do you plan activities for cultural festivals throughout the year where photos could be added to an album for inspection purposes. And maybe the same for disability awareness campaigns - Disabilityawarenessday.org.uk
In planning interest based activities with the children are you able to add, swap out, extend or change what's needed - images & resources so that disability & culture can be included more regularly - brown paper for faces, hand outlines/prints. Skin toned paints as a change to primaries or pastels. Different vehicles/transport and homes with small world play areas - inuit, mexican, african, chinese, italian, indian. Vary foods where origin can be discussed.
Do you have or can you setup links with parents, local organisations to request donations/loans that support awareness of disability & culture.

Music, food, dress, homes, native animals, vehicles, relationships, ethnicity & nationality, languages, country names, aids for disability and types of disability could be one way maybe to evidence how children access this information.

Hth, let us know how it goes xx