Bienvenido a Espana

Today downstairs, we sent to Spain which is called Espanje if you are Spanish and living there. Ana, Tomas’s mother came to our class and she told us some things about Spain, where she comes from. Tomas in fact was born in America  but he is still Spanish. Almost all of Tomas’s family live in Madrid which is the main city in Spain; just like Tokyo is the main city in Japan, Madrid is the same in Spain. Tomas had a red and yellow headband on a red and yellow on his top, which made it look as if he was wearing the Spanish flag. The flag has a red stripe on the top and the bottom and in the middle it is yellow. There is also a special coat of arms in the middle. We looked at a magnetic puzzle with the map of Spain on it and Tomas had a selection of pieces which Ana told us about. We learned about Barcelona which is a beautiful city with lots of old magnificent buildings; Sevilla which is a city famous for the flamenco, which is a Spanish dance; Paella which is the most famous food in Spain; Madrid, the largest city and then a beautiful island, called “Formentera” which Tomas goes to during summer. We all want to go to that island too.

  When you eat paella, while it is rice and we know that rice is white, it becomes yellow when you cook it and there are so many things that are added to it to make it the delicious treat that it is. We learnt to say hello – ola, thank you – grathias, friends – amigos, please – porfovor, wash your hands – lava los manos. Hisami sang “Estre gita dondo estas” which is “Twinkle, twinkle little star” and Shelley sang “Mi cuepo, hasa musica” which is “My body makes music”.

After snack time which was not only eating time, but making our snack, we listened to some children’s Spanish music and did some dancing. Ana will come back to teach us the dancing and read another book with Spanish words in it.

Let’s tell you about snack time. We made Spanish flag look alikes us skewers, red and yellow capsicum/peppers and a green olive. We put one piece of red pepper on the skewer, then a yellow one, then another red one and last but not least, an olive.

 The second cooking activity we did, was called “Pan con tomate” or as they say in Barcelona “Pan tumaca”. You take a piece of bread (maybe campagne bread) and then a tomato cut in half and you rub the tomato onto the bread. You then sprinkle a few drops of olive oil, a little bit of salt and on the top you put a delicious piece of “Jamon Serrano”. When you say “Serrano” you have to roll your tongue and make a “rrrrrrrr” sound. It was so delicious, some of us had three pieces of bread. We enjoyed rubbing the tomato onto the bread and adding all the things to it. We want to say a huge “grathias” to Ana, for doing such a fun lesson on Spain. We look forward to seeing you again for our “flamenco” lesson.   We enjoyed our KIDFIT class and then went to the park, for the first time this year, without our jackets. It was so warm and sunny, and we felt lighter without our huge jackets.

Upstairs, we spent time using the pegboards with rubber bands, making flags of some of the countries that we have visited during the past month.  We stretched the rubber bands to make the Israeli flag and even managed to make the stars in the middle; the Japanese flag and the Union Jack. Beckett also the rubber bands to make a bicycle wheel. Ava and Allie worked together on the really difficult puzzle of the United States of America. The map showed all of the states and it was extremely challenging. Jeremy and Jessica completed their art canvasses.

   During library time, we looked at a book called “Celebrating Texas” which showed us pictures of a rodeo and Texan food. In our KIDFIT class we continued learning about muscles. We used inflatable American footballs, walking sticks that looked like horses and then we balanced fruit and vegetables on our tummy’s and divided them into healthy and unhealthy.

When we came back to the classroom, we held onto a piece of string and pretended that we were on an airplane going around the world, to all the places we visited during International Month. We flew to India and said “Namaste” to Abiya and did some Yoga; we then went to Israel where we put little notes in the spaces of the Western Wall in Jerusalem; we made onigiri in Japan and ate sushi; we went to England and bowed and curtsied to the Queen; we then went to Canada and ate pancakes and maple syrup and then we went to America and rode a horse in Texas (Darren pretended to be a horse and we sat on his back as if we were riding a horse).

  We want to say thank you to all of our family’s who came to school to teach us about their country and we know that we still have a few more planned

Love always and have a great weekend

Shelley, Darren, Hisami, Ayaka, Liezel, Nanako, Goh, Christine, Maryna, Sharee