College Park Elementary went all out last week to celebrate their heritage of their Hispanic students and their families.
College Park Elementary has a high percentage of Hispanic families, so as part of Hispanic Heritage Month (which runs Sept. 15 through Oct. 15), the school’s Multilingual Team and Title 1 program joined forces to plan an event that highlighted their students’ heritage. College Park Elementary held its Hispanic Heritage celebration on Oct. 3 after school.
The school incorporated the theme into a number of art, reading and math lessons. Families were also invited to participate in a Yard Give happening simultaneously at the school, and the school gave away more than 200 boxes of pizza to families to take home.
Among the handful of the arts and crafts activities offered was creating Mexican vihuelas out of construction paper; a vihuela is small guitar with five nylon strings and a curved back. Students also did a reading comprehension activity centered around Frida Kahlo, a Mexican painter known for her portraits and self-portraits.
In the cafeteria, families were invited to participate in tasting some Hispanic cuisine – in particular, students sampled a Mexican fruit salad consisting of honey, lime juice, chili powder, honeydew, watermelon, cantaloupe, pineapple and mangoes. Next door in the multipurpose room, students learned a Mexican folkdance using scarves.
Prior to the festivities, Hispanic students were encouraged to get their families involved by working together to create artsy and informative poster boards to educate Hispanic Heritage Night attendees about their different nationalities. The boards were put on display in one of the school hallways for families to peruse during their visit.