Kids Travel the World Before They Can Read! (Virtually, of course.)

One of our aims is to help children feel capable, willing, and interested in interacting with those they may otherwise have considered “other”.  As the world becomes more interconnected, our kids will need to be able to collaborate with people with very diverse backgrounds. Either because they’ll be working abroad or because their work environment will include people from other places. By helping children realize that they have things in common with everyone, even if it doesn’t seem like it at first, we think we’re on the right path to raise Globe Smart world citizens.

In other blog posts we shared some cool Globe Smart stuff that we like for our own children. These books, apps and materials could complement working with the One Globe Kids app.

• One Globe Kids is partly a “Stories from Around the World’ series. There are many international picture books and books with photographs that tell about life in different places.

• One Globe Kids educates about flags, countries and facts like population and weather. Recently, we shared some great apps that do this too and that you might like.

• For some adults, One Globe Kids brings back good memories and is referred to as the a “new digital version of the Pen Pals”. (It isn’t, but we hope the feeling is the same!) We love Little Passports, a monthly mailed surprise package from two imaginary friends that travel the world and share their stories. Try it, you might like it!

• We believe that speaking more languages will help to make intergroup experiences more personal and positive. Making friends might be easier. We share what we learn about raising multilingual children’s whenever we can.

To make connecting to others as easy as possible, we want the global experience to be as real as possible. Especially for young users, including pre-readers.

• Safe and Secure: Anxiety related to cross-cultural situations and experiences is a major obstacle to prejudice reduction. It can keep us from engaging with someone or make the experience stressful, something we prefer not to repeat. One Globe Kids offers cross-cultural exposure in an anxiety-free way. Children can visit friends when they choose and from the security of a familiar environment.
• Photos instead of illustrations: Each One Globe Kids story offers an incredibly authentic and intimate view of a child’s life, with over 100 images accompanied by child narration. Each story also covers themes familiar to all children, helping them identify with and feel empathy toward the children in the stories.
• Cultural Storytelling: Each One Globe Kids story includes culturally-rich details, moving beyond basic knowledge about the country and culture. The facts section of each story also includes basic information about the country, but the cultural details in the stories will be of much more influence.
• Interactive Education: In each story, students are asked to share and record conversations about their own life, helping them make simple connections with the child in the story.
• For Real children, by Real children: Real children narrate each story in English, French and Dutch. No repeat narrators either, because then two children would sound alike and it would break the authenticity of the experience.

Since travel opportunities and language education are often limited, One Globe Kids strategically offers the next best option for parents, educators and children to teach global citizenship: an interactive library of international friends that paves the way for real intergroup friendships in the future. Happy travels!