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strengths-based early childhood curriculum that incorporates play-based practices while drawing on children’ s cultures and communities is essential for the effective education and care of young children( NAEYC 2020; NASEM 2024). Educators must immerse themselves in the communities they serve so they can create playful learning experiences that build on children’ s cultural and linguistic assets while working toward specific learning goals( Allen & Rodriguez 2026). This requires establishing reciprocal relationships with families and community members to understand their perceptions about play and to communicate why it is important in early education( Zosh et al. 2022).
Intentional educators draw upon children’ s and families’ funds of knowledge to create playful learning opportunities that reflect children’ s social and cultural knowledge, skills, and experiences( Yosso 2005; Moll et al. 2006; Salinas-Gonzalez et al. 2018). To do this, they must continually ask
› What are children’ s and families’ experiences? › What are they talking about? › What is happening in their communities?
These questions can guide educators as they create learning opportunities within and beyond an early childhood setting. This approach also supports equity: It recognizes each child’ s unique strengths, and it values the community as a context for learning( NAEYC 2019).
In 2021, Texas A & M University – San Antonio received a multimillion-dollar, five-year grant from the US Department of Education to provide culturally relevant arts education experiences for students, prekindergarten through grade 5, and their families. The grant supported more than 800 educators throughout the city to receive arts integration professional development and more than three dozen arts experiences for families to engage in together.
We( the authors) were tasked with designing and implementing culturally relevant, arts-based family engagement experiences. As part of this work, we partnered with a local Title I elementary school. At the time, nearly 90 percent of the school’ s student body identified as Hispanic, and 94 percent came from homes designated by the state as economically disadvantaged. We wanted to introduce community-informed, guided play strategies to this school that purposefully integrated families’ cultures and identities as children developed oral language skills in both Spanish and English.
In this article, we explain the importance of community and culture in children’ s development. We describe how we decided to focus on San Antonio’ s rich mariachi history to honor children’ s cultures and contexts through family-focused, guided play activities. We then offer ways that other early childhood administrators and educators who work with children from age 3 through the primary grades can engage and reflect their larger communities in their play-based curricula.
Melding Culture, Arts, and Play
Every community has shared knowledge, experiences, and interests that are passed from one generation to another and that help to shape a child’ s development( Moll et al. 2006). Often, this is done through activities like storytelling, creating and viewing artwork, participating in music and movement, and other language- and arts-based experiences( Korn 1998; Otto 2014). Children bring these experiences with them to early learning programs and schools, where they use their social and cultural knowledge to make sense of new ideas and skills( Yosso 2005).
An impactful early childhood curriculum builds on children’ s cultural and community assets to address meaningful goals in an integrated way across domains and content areas( NAEYC 2020; NASEM 2024). For example, children can use the arts to develop language and communication skills as they tell stories, entertain themselves and others, and showcase their individuality. The personal, cultural,
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