Young children need to feel special about who they are. Teachers can use images of people from all over the world while pointing out the various skin colors. With a variety of skin-toned paint and a large piece of white paper, the children can make hand prints by dipping their hands into the paint and then placing their hands on the paper. A small photo of each child and the child's name, put alongside the hand prints, completes the project.
Children often ask questions when they see someone who looks or acts different. To help them see the ways that all people are alike, teachers can use pictures of people from magazines that represent as much racial variety as possible. The teacher cuts out the eyes, noses, mouths, hair, hands and feet for children to choose from and glue onto a piece of paper.
People eat food to grow and keep their bodies strong, but all people don't eat the same kinds of food. Teacher can teach this lesson by using images of food from other countries as well as foods from where the students live. From an array of fruits and vegetables cut in half to display the seeds, children can dip the pieces of food into several brightly colored paints and use them to stamp prints onto a piece of black construction paper.
Exposing pre-k students to worldwide fabric colors and patterns will ignite their creativity. The teacher shows the children quilt blocks, highlighting the different patterns and colors. On a large piece of poster board, the teachers draws squares to serve as boundary for each quilt block. Using precut fabric squares, the children glue the fabric pieces inside each boundary, creating a multicultural class quilt.