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This Week · Home and Belonging · Indigenous Peoples' Day

Home and Belonging: what makes a place feel like home?

For littler ones: What makes a place feel like home to you?

Home and Belonging — What makes a place feel like home?

This week we're wondering about home, and belonging. What actually makes a place feel like home — the people in it, the smell of supper, or something you carry with you wherever you land? It's a good one to turn over in the car or at the table, especially this week. Native peoples were living on this land long before anyone else arrived, and folks have kept arriving ever since, each looking for a place to belong. Everyone at your house will answer it a little differently.

This week's stories

American

Young Martin in Atlanta

A boy growing up on Auburn Avenue, in a house full of his family, in a city where Jim Crow laws told him which streets, schools, and stores were open to him and which were closed.

American

The Children at Ellis Island

Children stepping off a crowded boat into a huge stone hall, carrying everything they own in one bag, not yet sure if this new country will let them stay.

American

The Refugee Family's First Thanksgiving

A family far from the country they grew up in, setting a table with foods that are half new and half from home, on a holiday they've never kept before.

Talk about it

  • When you walk in your front door, what's the first thing that makes you feel like you're home?
  • Can a place feel like home before you know anyone there — or does it take time? What do you think makes the difference?
  • If you moved somewhere far away, what would you bring along to help a new place start to feel like home?

A new question every week.

Listen together in the app — short audio stories for kids 4–10, at bedtime, on the drive, in the drop-off line.

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