{"id":401,"date":"2017-04-18T22:14:46","date_gmt":"2017-04-18T22:14:46","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.vsb.bc.ca\/pride\/?p=401"},"modified":"2017-04-18T22:14:46","modified_gmt":"2017-04-18T22:14:46","slug":"inclusive-ways-to-celebrate-mothers-and-fathers-day-from-welcomingschools-org","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.vsb.bc.ca\/pride\/2017\/04\/18\/inclusive-ways-to-celebrate-mothers-and-fathers-day-from-welcomingschools-org\/","title":{"rendered":"Inclusive Ways to Celebrate Mother&#8217;s and Father&#8217;s Day (from welcomingschools.org)"},"content":{"rendered":"<div>\n<p>As we celebrate and honour parents and families in schools, Mother\u2019s Day and Father\u2019s Day can be opportunities for recognizing the diversity of family structures.<\/p>\n<p>While some students have a mother and a father, others may have two moms, two dads, a single mom or dad, grandparents raising them, divorced parents or a whole range of other family situations.<\/p>\n<p>If you decide to include recognition of Mother\u2019s and Father\u2019s Day in your curriculum, this guide can offer ideas for making those activities more welcoming for all students and their families.<\/p>\n<p>Inclusive celebrations can serve as an important learning experience by providing opportunities to discuss and acknowledge the many kinds of families in our communities and the many caring adults who are in children\u2019s lives.<\/p>\n<p>For some students, this may be especially affirming to see their families acknowledged in the classroom. When students feel seen and understood at school, they fare better both emotionally and academically.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div><strong>Inclusive Ways to Celebrate Parents and Families:<\/strong><\/div>\n<div>\n<ul>\n<li>Help children focus on what they have, not what they don\u2019t have, by looking at the range of caring adults in their lives.<\/li>\n<li>\n<div>\n<div>Find out from your students or their families the language they use to talk about their families. This\u2019ll help you guide students through any conversations that come up during the discussion.<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/li>\n<li>Check out the activities in the <em>Tree of Caring<\/em> lesson from Welcoming Schools. This includes five different activities about the caring adults in a child\u2019s life. These include: <em>Tree of Caring \u2013 Family and<br \/>\nFriends, Circle of Caring Community, A Clothespin Family, Natural Tree of Caring and A Family Mobile.<\/em><\/li>\n<li>Read books with students that feature many kinds of family structures such as <em>The Family Book<\/em> by Todd Parr or <em>The Great Big Book of Families<\/em> by Mary Hoffman. Click <a href=\"http:\/\/blogs.vsb.bc.ca\/pride\/vsb-elementary-school-library-collection\/\">here<\/a> for more VSB books.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>Inclusive Ways to Celebrate Mother&#8217;s Day and Father&#8217;s Day<\/strong><strong><br \/>\n<\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Make sure that you talk about the different people in your students\u2019 lives who could receive any cards or gifts students\u2019 might create. On Mother\u2019s Day, for example, a child could make something for an aunt or birth mother. Or if they have two dads as primary caregivers, they could create cards in May and June.<\/li>\n<li>With older elementary students, Mother\u2019s Day and Father\u2019s Day can also be used as an opportunity to look at gender stereotypes. Students can discuss the qualities that mothers and fathers have and explore why these qualities have culturally been assigned to a specific gender. Questions you could discuss include:What are important qualities for parents to have? Can either a mom or dad\u00a0have these?What kinds of things do parents do for or with their children? Can either a mom\u00a0or dad do these?<\/li>\n<li>For younger students, steer clear of activities that involve gender-stereotyping \u2013 like making cards shaped like ties for Father\u2019s Day.<\/li>\n<li>If you do plan to hold an event for either Mother\u2019s Day or Father\u2019s Day where students ask their mother or father to the school, make sure no child is alone while most others have a parent or family member who can attend. Call on other people within your school, such as aides or other staff, to be there for students.<\/li>\n<li>Some schools celebrate with a Parents\u2019 Day or Family Day so that activities can be more inclusive of the many families in their school.<\/li>\n<li>Recognize that there may be students in your class who have lost a parent or whose parent is absent, and difficult emotions may come up if you celebrate Mother\u2019s Day or Father\u2019s Day in your classroom.<\/li>\n<li>Making something in the classroom can always present challenges. The key is to be sensitive and help those children who need it, so that they do not have to handle challenges alone.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h2>Lesson Plans from Welcoming Schools<\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/hrc-assets.s3-website-us-east-1.amazonaws.com\/\/welcoming-schools\/documents\/WS-Lesson-Tree-of-Caring.pdf\" target=\"_blank\">Trees of Caring and Circles of Caring Community<\/a>: Five \u201cFamily Tree\u201d Activities Showing Support<br \/>\nfor Children in All Families (Gr. K \u2013 3)<\/li>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/hrc-assets.s3-website-us-east-1.amazonaws.com\/\/welcoming-schools\/documents\/WS-Lesson-Where-Im-From-Poetry.pdf\" target=\"_blank\">Where I\u2019m From: Family, Community and Poetry <\/a>(Gr. 4 \u2013 6)<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Books:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>VSB books, click <a href=\"http:\/\/blogs.vsb.bc.ca\/pride\/vsb-elementary-school-library-collection\/\">here<\/a>.<\/li>\n<li><em>Welcoming Schools<\/em> Booklist: <a href=\"http:\/\/www.welcomingschools.org\/pages\/diverse-books-featuring-all-kinds-of-families\/\">Great Books Featuring Diverse and Inclusive Families<\/a><\/li>\n<li><em>Welcoming Schools<\/em> Booklist: <a href=\"http:\/\/www.welcomingschools.org\/pages\/books-inclusive-of-LGBTQ-family-members-and-characters\/\">Great LGBTQ-Inclusive Picture &amp; Middle Grade Books<\/a><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Source: Welcoming Schools (welcomingschools.org)<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>As we celebrate and honour parents and families in schools, Mother\u2019s Day and Father\u2019s Day can be opportunities for recognizing the diversity of family structures. While some students have a mother and a father, others may have two moms, two &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/blogs.vsb.bc.ca\/pride\/2017\/04\/18\/inclusive-ways-to-celebrate-mothers-and-fathers-day-from-welcomingschools-org\/\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":267,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-401","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.vsb.bc.ca\/pride\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/401","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.vsb.bc.ca\/pride\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.vsb.bc.ca\/pride\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.vsb.bc.ca\/pride\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/267"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.vsb.bc.ca\/pride\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=401"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.vsb.bc.ca\/pride\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/401\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":403,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.vsb.bc.ca\/pride\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/401\/revisions\/403"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.vsb.bc.ca\/pride\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=401"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.vsb.bc.ca\/pride\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=401"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.vsb.bc.ca\/pride\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=401"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}