FAACT’s 10 Tips to Create a Culturally Curious Family Learning Legacy

Instructions:
This is a great opportunity to do some fun things with your family at home to promote a legacy of cultural learning.

1. Start a family book club and challenge one another to discover new books, podcasts, and music from diverse cultures and experience.
2. Plan family volunteerism activities in communities not like yours at least once a quarter.
3. Take turns hosting a lunch or dinner with foods that are not traditional to your family, whether from other parts of the United States or other parts of the world! Remember to be mindful of allergies.
4. Plan a road trip together to cities that have rich cultural histories and check out museums or historical sites together. Visit FAACT’s Suggestions for Cultural Experiences section.
5. Plan a group activity creating dioramas depicting interesting elements of various cultures. Use caution with craft tools be sure they don’t contain your allergens.
6. Have a family “virtual culture day” and visit online museums to discover rich histories.
7. Pick a city and challenge your family to make a list of five cool things they learned about the history and culture of that city and discuss.
8. Support other cultures on their national days or heritage months. For example, during Hispanic Heritage Month (September 15-October 15), support at least one Hispanic-owned business each week if you can.
9. Learn a language together so you all can converse as you are learning. Get both adult and children’s input when choosing the language so that everyone feels included. A cool way to start is to simply learn to say “Hello, how are you?” in different languages to see which language feels most comfortable for your family. Create a family culture tree. Much like a traditional family tree, include what part of the world each relative is from. If you’re not sure, see if you can include what part of America you know information about as far as you can go. This may be the start of your culture tree knowledge for the next generation. Download FAACT’s Family Culture Tree.
10. Create a family world events timeline. Use the birth years of relatives as far back as you can go. Start to research significant things that happened in that year and create a timeline entry for each one in a journal. You can use a notebook, scrapbook, or create this using a software in your own unique way. Be sure to make a backup copy and share it with others who can help update it.