Sheboygan’s Early Learning Center puts cultures center stage for Family Traditions Day

SHEBOYGAN — On Nov. 21, the Early Learning Center will host its Family Traditions Day to bring children of all cultures together to celebrate autumn festivities and eat foods from the United States, Mexico, Asia and more.

The day is also a collaboration with Sheboygan South High School’s Ballet Folklorico, who dance for the children.

“It's really important to embed (celebrating diversity) really young in the kids that diversity and cultural things should be valued,” said Pa Cha, the center’s multilingual learner teacher. “And I feel like it fosters a lot of respect, and open mindedness, for other cultures.”

The Early Learning Center is the Sheboygan Area School District’s 4-year-old kindergarten program, as well as an early learning center.

Of the 4-year-old students, 25% of them are multilingual learners, Cha said. The center offers a dual-language class taught in Spanish two days and English two days every week. The class has substantially grown in the last few years and now has a waiting list.

Family Traditions Day began as a Thanksgiving and Hmong New Year celebration with egg rolls, pumpkin bread and fruit. It was canceled during the COVID pandemic.

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In 2022, Ryanne Froh, library/technology educational assistant, wanted to bring the festivities back, so they re-started the annual celebration, this time called Family Traditions Day and spanning more of the building.

“Not everyone celebrates Thanksgiving,” Cha said. “So, we wanted to make sure we were being equitable, and, just, everyone can participate.”

The children at the center are encouraged to dress up for the celebration. This could mean standard dress clothes or their ethnic garb, whatever dressing up means to the specific child and their culture, Froh said.

At the celebration, there will be about 375 children ages 3-5.

During the meal, the kids are all mixed up, so they aren’t sitting with their classmates and get to talk to children they may not know.

SASD is fortunate in its diversity, Cha said. The kids all enjoy seeing their friends dress up and get curious about the clothing the other kids wear. She said there’s never been any negativity and it’s a positive overall experience.

Food for the event is prepared by the center, families who donate egg rolls and La Conquistadora. Froh said they try to represent multiple different cultures in the food.

Additionally, some families have asked to provide food from their culture for specific classrooms.

“It's kind of neat to see these different cultures saying, ‘Hey, I want to do something,’” Froh said.

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While workers in the center finish preparing the food for the children, Sheboygan South High School students in the group Ballet Folklorico dance.

“Folkloric dance expresses the life and spirit of a people through its movement and music,” said a passage from Vanderbilt University’s Center for Latin American Studies. “It is both historical and current, preserving tradition yet shifting with the current times.”

Froh said the children love watching the dancers and get excited when they come. Sometimes, she said, there are relatives of the children who perform, and it’s cool to see them together and take photos in their cultural clothing.

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This article originally appeared on Sheboygan Press: Sheboygan school's Family Traditions Day teaches about cultures