Teaching Kids to Love Their Heritage Through Art & Storytelling
When I was a child in the Dominican Republic, I didn’t understand the richness of my roots.
I saw the vibrant colors of our traditional dresses. I heard the echo of tamboras and güiras at family gatherings. I tasted the sweetness of dulce de leche and the fire of mangú con salami. But I didn’t realize then that these everyday pieces were clues to my identity, breadcrumbs back to who I really was.
It wasn’t until I lost the people who carried those traditions my mother, my grandmother, my father that I began to feel the ache of distance. That’s when I made a decision:
My children will grow up knowing exactly where they come from and loving it.
And the most powerful way I found to do that? Art + storytelling.
Why Cultural Education for Kids Starts at Home
In a world that often pushes kids to assimilate or disconnect from their roots, cultural education becomes a sacred rebellion. And you don’t need a curriculum to do it. You just need intention and imagination.
Through art and storytelling, we give our kids more than knowledge. We give them belonging. We give them pride. We give them a reason to stand tall when the world tries to shrink them.
3 Simple Art Activities About Heritage to Try at Home
1. Paint Your Family Tree – With Faces and Flags! Create a vibrant visual family tree using photos, drawings, and the flags of your ancestral countries. Let your child decorate each section with patterns or colors they associate with each story.
2. Cuentos y Colores: Storytelling with Paint Share a short Dominican folktale or personal family memory, and have your child paint or draw a scene from it. Even if their art is abstract or messy it’s a portal into their roots.
3. Design Your Own Traditional Outfit Pull up pictures of folkloric Dominican dresses or carnival costumes. Let your child “design” their own version with paper dolls, fabric scraps, or coloring sheets.
You can even make this part of a Sunday ritual storytelling, music, dress-up, and drawing all in one.
Bonus: Try classic Dominican stories like El Bacá or La Ciguapa and add your own family flavor to them.
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Because your child’s story didn’t start with them. Let’s make sure they know the pages that came before.
With amor,
– Andria Jimenez
