I’m loving these “multicultural markers” from Crayola. (Tip: If you have Amazon Prime, buy these instead, as although they cost more, you’ll be eligible for that free shipping.)
If, as we do in my house, you go through a lot of markers, you might consider buying a class set, which costs considerably less per pen than the individual pack of markers.
If you prefer pencils or crayons in a variety of skin tones, you might check out these instead:
I frequently reference multicultural crafts here at The Multicultural Toybox, so I wanted to create a quick reference site that folks can browse at a glance. Consider this a mini-mall for multicultural arts and crafts. You might also check out the multicultural crafts category to locate posts about arts and crafts.
By the way, if you do a ton of shopping at Amazon, I can’t recommend highly enough the Amazon Prime service. Currently, for about $6 per month (you get 13 months for the price of 12, since the first month is free), you get unlimited free 2-day shipping, and you can share the service with up to four people in your household. There’s no minimum order size, and you can upgrade any item to overnight shipping for only $3.99. Go check it out! [Read more...]
This post is a continuation of my post on multicultural crafts supplies that would make thoughtful gifts. While the first post focused on helping children represent the full spectrum of human skin tones when they draw people, this post looks more closely at folk arts and crafts from a range of cultures.
Combine this textile paper with the human paper shapes kit to give kids the opportunity to really express themselves as they create beautiful clothing for the paper figures. These papers reproduce a rich variety of African traditional fabrics, and each 32-sheet package comes with a project idea guide.
This 128-sheet pack expands on the African textile paper described above. These paper reproductions of beautiful textiles are based on Asian, African, Native American, and Hispanic cultural motifs from around the world. The package comes with a project idea guide. [Read more...]
When I was a kid, adults still frequently referred to the peach crayon as “flesh color.” Today, there’s no excuse for passing on to children such a narrow view of human diversity–both because we are in many ways more sensitive to issues of diversity and because there are some fabulous art supplies out there to solve the problem of the singular flesh-colored crayon.
Why this gift matters
Kids can learn pretty early on–by picking up on explicit and implicit signals from adults–how to view a society that is becoming increasingly diverse. It’s important to both be direct with your children about living in a multicultural society by working the topic into your everyday conversations and to model good behavior as a citizen of a diverse society. Arts and crafts are an excellent opportunity to have these kinds of discussions, as kids are relatively focused on a single task. Providing children with craft supplies designed with multiculturalism in mind makes it even easier to start these conversations–and lets you encourage your children to imagine the possibility of a vibrant world packed with interesting people from whose lives and experiences they might learn. [Read more...]
I just came across a few videos that I thought do a fine job of explaining how kids, and in the case of the first video, especially biracial or multiracial children, can express themselves through puppets in liberating ways. Try to look past the low production values, as there’s some really good information here, both in terms of how children use puppets and how parents might encourage children to be creative through animating common objects.
Using Puppets to Improve Children’s Communications Skills
Puppetry in Education
Object Exploration and Play
I just found this Multicultural World Construction Paper
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