Global Family

According to an article written by Melody Warnick, in the November 2009 "Ladies Home Journal", exploring the world with your family is fun and enlightening. Introducing your kids to different cultures teaches them to be open-minded about people's differences. Melody Warnick has some good ideas to help your family get started.

1. Eat different countries culinary dishes - pizza from Italy, pitas from Egypt, chicken curry from India and your kids will be inspired to widen their global eating experiences. You can get exotic cuisine at home: http://www.spatulatta.com/ , the online kids' cooking site.

2. Make a date to attend an international children's festival, where Croatian folk dancers, Japanese storyteller and Zimbabwean musicians can perform side by side; Pittsburgh, Seattle, Philadelphia and other cities host such art festivals annually. Or hunt in your newspaper for local cultural events.

3. Study a foreign language together, which has been shown to boost kids' performance on reading and math test. start small by writing foreign words for everyday objects on index cards and taping them around the house. Check out www.googlecom/translate to convert English into 42 languages, including Arabic, Chinese and Lithuanian.

4. Make a foreign friend. It is a digital world, but snail-mail pen pals are safer for kids- and getting a letter wit exotic stamps is an old-fashioned thrill. Try a reliable pen pal organization, like Student Letter Exchange, http://www.pen-pal.com/ , a U.S. based service that matches kids 8 and up with potential pals in other countries.

5. Meet your ancestors. It is fun to trace your family tree to its cross-cultural roots with a site like http://www.ancestry.com/ . You might just learn a thing or two about your heritage too.