Multicultural Family Literacy Night

Are you planning a multicultural family literacy night at your school? It’s a fun and educational theme for an event and with these tips, it will be a successful one too.

Planning a Multicultural Family Literacy Night

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All the Nitty Gritty Planning

Need help promoting, encouraging attendance, and basic planning ideas? You’ll want to check out this post before you start.  It even has printable planning forms to use.—>Go to the How to Plan a Family Literacy Night

Multicultural Literacy Night Activities

Here are some literacy-related activities to try at your family night.  The number of activities you select will depend on your resources, the number of staff available, and the number of families attending.

• As families arrive, have them each draw and color a picture of themselves to hang in the entry of the school.  Make sure to have crayons and markers in different skin tones.
• Invite families to bring a book that represents their culture to share as a read-aloud with other families.   Or, have books that represent each culture on hand for families to explore together.
• Set up stations of different cultures to create a walking touch table museum.  Have facts for families to read, food to taste, items to explore, and people from that culture to talk to learn more.
• Give each family a passport to have stamped at different stations.
• Hold a monthly Family Dinner Book Club featuring a country each month.  Families can share food, a read aloud, community service idea, and conversation with already done for you clubs.—>See the Around the World Family Dinner Book Clubs
• Invite someone to read a bilingual book with you during a read aloud.  One person will read in one language and the other person will repeat each page in the second language.

Multicultural Books to Reading During Your Event

Here are some titles to enjoy that would make good whole group read-alouds.

My top pick to read aloud to participants is All Are Welcome by Alexandra Penfold. It is a declaration and appreciation of every family in your school community.

Here are some other books that would also work for your event.

Whoever You Are by Mem Fox

All the Colors of the Earth by Sheila Hamanaka.

Same, Same but Different by Jenny Sue Kostecki-Shaw

For more multicultural books, check out these great lists.

Multicultural Books for Children

Multicultural Books for Preschoolers

Multicultural Books for Babies and Toddlers

These resources will help you have a successful event.  For even more resources for connecting with families, check out Empowering Families to Build Literacy Skills at Home.