Cinco de Mayo / Review 2014

During the week of April 28 - May 2, 2014, our theme was "Cinco De Mayo" so that they understand the festival when the 5th of May arrives.  The children learned about the history and discussed many aspects like the garments worn, the food that's served, and viewed a special dance - "The Mexican Hat Dance".

During the week, we also reviewed letter names, letter sounds, numbers, and practiced writing their name.

For art, the children painted sombreros. The first class used water colors on brown paper.  It was very subdued, so we tried watered down paint in the next class.  In that next class, they had the advantage of having lighter paper (grey), so a lot of the colors popped more.  Those hats were cut out and stapled on sentence strips and then fitted on the children's heads.  It turned out to be such a wonderful idea!  It made all the teachers giggle in delight.

The children had the opportunity to dance in their hats to Mariachi music, shake maracas or egg shakers, and pretend to do the Mexican hat dance.

On Thursday, the class was able to wear their hats home, since they won't be here on Cinco de Mayo.  The parents thought they looked great!

This blog is published on May 4th.  On May 5th, the Monday class will be able to walk out with their sombreros on.  I want to take a picture of the parents and their reactions when we parade outside and then turn and take a picture of the children on parade.  Hopefully I remember and then I can post it here.

Enjoy!

We're practicing our skits:

 

Birthday party:

Prizes!

We now dance around the hat:

Thinking about and drawing what is in the hen's basket.  The children have to learn to pace themselves, not rush and scribble scrabble, and think that there's something better to do if they finish.  This has been a lesson we have been teaching, so that it won't come as a shock in kindergarten.