Children will delight wonderful dishes from the Americas. The target vocabulary will be table and kitchen words. Table manners will be taught. Children will discover new science, math, health, social skills and cultural awareness through our hands-on cooking of Central and South American cuisine. We’ll make guacamole, arepas, quesadillas and the sweet and yummy Cuban rice pudding (arroz con leche). Children will measure, squeeze, and mix ingredients while singing traditional songs from Latin-America. Students will also plant various legumes to better understand the process of nature. We will count them and emphasis their diversity through differentiating colors and shapes.

This week’s “Campers” (students) will create an outdoor scene, converting the classroom into an artful space full of mountains, rivers, lakes, forests and beaches. Students will read and sing inside a unique tent they will design with recycled materials, helping to instil environmental sensitivity and a desire to conserve. We will be camping in magical places in the Caribbean, Guatemala, The Amazon and in the beautiful Andean regions of South America. We’ll study the diverse fauna we will encounter through our camping trip (including a surprise visit of real ‘wild’ animals brought to us by Curious Creatures. Children act out camping activities as well as creating items for outdoor use such as kites and fishing rods.

This week dancers, musicians and magicians will visit in full costume to teach, sing and dance in a Carnival parade! Children will explore various vibrant rhythms from the Americas. There will be an instrument ‘petting zoo’, where children will be able to handle and play percussion instruments. We’ll also build our own instruments from recycled materials, and at the end of the week we’ll put on a show! We will celebrate Carnaval and the magical life of a circus. Children are welcome arrive dressed for the occasion. We’ll explore the life of magicians, trapeze artists, ballerinas, and animals of the circus.

Children will enjoy learning the Spanish names of farm animals as we turn our classroom into a farm! Students will work together like bees (abejas) as we build a barn, stables, and a home for each animal. Through song, role-play, and Total Physical Response (TPR) storytelling, students will learn about each animal, its needs, and why it has a place on the farm (provides milk, eggs, wool, etc.). We’ll examine the different animals found on different farms through the Americas and the Spanish-speaking world. To make the learning first-hand, a live ‘petting zoo’ will be brought to the class with fluffy and cuddly animals for children to observe and touch.

This week children will ask the question “What do I want to be when I grow up?” Children will build, explore and contrast different sceneries to explore professions. For what they will go on a trip and meet with campesinos and natives of the Americas to more urban professions we encounter every day. Children will build, explore and contrast different sceneries depicting these professions. We will build a community of helping professionals seen in today’s multi-cultural neighborhoods. Children will learn that a community can be small, with only a few buildings and residents, or large, modern cities. Students in our recreated community will each other by offering goods and services. We’ll earn the importance of being bilingual in a multi-cultural community, and will learn how to bridge cultures and differences when we are bilingual. During the week, the class will be visited by individuals of various professions to show how each is helping his and her communities every day.

This week extra-terrestrials will visit and take the class on a tour through the solar system. Friendly space aliens and children will blast off in a spaceship to learn about planets and the cosmos. The aliens don’t quite understand the concept of conservation and will try to make our planet duty, but the children will teach them about earth and nature. During their time together, astronauts and children will take the extra-terrestrials on an expedition through the Americas to show them amazing foods, scenes and habitats from tropical islands, wide plains, rainforest jungles, and to the Andes mountains. The humans and aliens will work together to protect endangered species. Children will teach the other-wordly visitors the names of many American nations and learn ways to live on the Earth sustainably. By the end of the week-long visit, the extraterrestrials will depart, leaving a green and healthy planet.

Children will explore the changing seasons of the year as well as animals found throughout the varying climates found in the Americas. Children will learn how seasons differ throughout the American continents. Patagonia, for instance, shivers with winter in July while enjoying summer in January. We’ll also explore seasons and climates in the Caribbean, Amazon and Andean regions. We’ll become familiar with the diverse animals of varying habitats through the Americas and the Spanish-speaking world. While exploring each regions seasons, students will craft thematic items, including iconic seasonal images such as scarecrows and snowmen!