One Morning, Many Mornings — How Children Live Around the World

Using a photo book or true stories about real children, the child compares one ordinary part of the day — breakfast, the way to school, a favourite game — with how children in other places do it, looking for what is the same as well as what is different.

  1. Choose one everyday topic for today: what we eat in the morning, how we get to school, where we sleep, what we play outside.
  2. First the child describes their own version in detail. Draw it or take a quick photo.
  3. Open a non-fiction book about real children around the world (library books such as Children Just Like Me or This Is How We Do It work well) and look at the same moment in two or three other children’s lives. Find each child’s country on a map.
  4. Play “Same, same, different”: for each child the child names two things that are the same as their own life and one that is different. (“She eats breakfast with her family too. She has a brother too. She has rice and I have cereal.”)
  5. Try one thing for real — taste the food, say good morning in that language, or play the game described.

Variation: ask a friend, neighbour or relative who grew up somewhere else to tell or show their own morning, or compare within your own country — a child on a farm, in a flat in a city, on an island.

Requirements

  • Space: A sofa or table for sharing a book
  • Surface: Any
  • Materials: A non-fiction photo book about children's daily lives (library copy is fine), paper and crayons; a map or globe is optional
  • Participants: 1 adult + 1 child; richer with a person who can share their own experience
  • Supervision: Light — the adult reads, asks and answers questions

Rationale & Objective

The EYFS goal for People, Culture and Communities asks children to explain some similarities and differences between life in their own country and life in other countries, drawing on stories and non-fiction; HighScope KDI 53 (Diversity) describes children understanding that people have diverse characteristics, interests and abilities; and Te Whāriki’s Contribution strand aims for children to be affirmed as individuals while learning alongside others. How this is taught matters. Anti-bias educators (Derman-Sparks & Edwards) warn against a “tourist” approach that shows other cultures only through festivals, costumes and exotic food, because it teaches that other people are strange. Comparing ordinary daily life — and naming two similarities for every difference — instead builds the understanding that children everywhere eat, play, learn and are loved, and that there are many normal ways of doing so. Starting from the child’s own routine also makes them aware that their way is one way among many.

Progress Indicators

  • Early: describes own routine; notices only striking differences in the photos (“no shoes!”) and may call them funny or wrong; needs help to find anything the same
  • Developing: finds one similarity and one difference with prompting; is curious and asks questions; remembers which country one child lives in
  • Proficient: names two similarities and a difference for each child unprompted; describes a custom from another place without judging it; says that people live in different places and do things in different ways
  • Advanced: offers reasons for differences (“it is hot there, so school starts early”); points out differences among families they know as equally normal; connects to own traditions (“we do that at Grandma’s too”)

Safety Notes

  • Choose books with recent photographs of real, named children in everyday settings, and avoid material that shows a whole country through poverty, costume or a single stereotype
  • Respond calmly to blunt remarks (“that looks yucky”) — treat them as questions and model a respectful way to say it (“that is new to me”)
  • When tasting unfamiliar food, check for allergies and never insist on a bite
  • Do not put a child, friend or neighbour on the spot as a spokesperson for a whole country or culture; invite, never demand, and make clear they speak about their own family

Hints

  • Playfulness: have a “world breakfast” at the weekend, learn a playground game from the book and teach it to a friend, or send a drawing of your own morning to a relative abroad and ask for theirs
  • Sustain interest: one topic per session — mornings, lunch, journeys to school, bedtime, pets, chores — returning to the same two or three children so they become familiar
  • Common mistake: hunting only for differences. Always ask for the sames first, and include your own life in the comparison so that “normal” is not just you
  • Limited space: no book to hand? Use family photos from different homes, or talk about how a cousin’s or neighbour’s household does mornings differently
  • Cross-domain: find each country on a globe (geography); count how many children eat bread, rice or porridge and make a simple picture graph (data); learn a greeting in another language (vocabulary); talk about how each child might feel (empathy)
  • Progression: describe own routine → compare with one other child → two sames and a different for several children → try one custom for real → suggest reasons for differences → interview someone about their own childhood elsewhere

Sources

  • UK EYFS Statutory Framework — Understanding the World, ELG People, Culture and Communities
  • HighScope Preschool Curriculum — Key Developmental Indicator 53, Diversity (Social Studies)
  • Derman-Sparks, L. & Edwards, J.O., Anti-Bias Education for Young Children and Ourselves (NAEYC)
  • Te Whāriki (2017), New Zealand early childhood curriculum — Contribution and Belonging strands
  • Teaching Strategies GOLD — Objective 30, shows basic understanding of people and how they live
  • Montessori Cultural Studies — continent folders and pictures of everyday life around the world
  • Singapore NEL Framework — Discovery of the World