Off to Mexico

This morning we visited our next country; Mexico. Olivia arrived in a beautiful blue dress with lots of frills on it ready for our special Mexico day. On the table Olivia and Eito started their day with the pink playdough. Eito used the cookie cutters together to make a beautiful cookie with way lines on the top. On the second table we started to prepare for Ethan, Ryan and Noa’s bye-bye party next week by making some ‘Good Bye’ hearts to put in their portfolio book. We each chose a colored heart and drew a picture or wrote a message on it with the sparkly pens. On the carpet Riko and Noa enjoyed getting out the human figurines and building with the wooden blocks. Noa then joined her friends Lucinda and Alexis in the dress up corner. They each put on the princess dresses and looked so cute together. The large easel whiteboard was also very popular this morning with many of the children. Nile and Alexis made a beautiful picture with the whiteboard markers too. After snack time Christina (Olivia’s mother) arrived to introduce Mexico to us. We saw Mexico on the big world atlas and then Christina showed us on her computer a bigger map of Mexico. We then heard some Spanish language such as how to ask “What’s your name”? (Cual es tu nombre)? We then saw lots of pictures introducing us to the Pyramids in Mexico. There are pyramids in Egypt too. Christina then surprised us all by asking us which food originally came from Mexico. We had lots of suggestions such as sausage, chicken, ham etc. Jennifer then said “Chocolate”. She was right. We saw a great picture of a cocoa bean. Some other famous food from Mexico included corn. We asked “Why is there blue corn”? Christina told us it was because there are lots of different kinds of corn. Vanilla, peppers & tomatoes were also originally from Mexico. We then saw a picture of a big cat which looked a bit like a cheetah or a leopard but actually turned out to be a Jaguar. Olivia then showed us her special dress which is from the area that Olivia’s family is from. The women dress up in these costumes to dance and soon Nile and Olivia were dancing in the circle. Nile put on a beautiful white dress form a different part of Mexico. We also saw how the Mexican cowboys dress and perform too. Christina then showed us how to make a beautiful tissue paper decoration for the classroom. We each got a piece of square colored tissue paper and a pair of scissors to use. Firstly we folded the tissue paper in half and then in half again. Using the scissors we cut pieces from around the edges and a few holes in the center. When we opened the paper up it made a very pretty pattern. We put out a piece of ribbon on the floor to attach the tissue paper to using tape. We were very careful and taped them all in place in a line. We were very lucky as Christina then read us all a book titled ‘One more Sheep’ which we listened carefully to as it was a lot of fun. After reading the book Christina showed us some blue corn chips she had brought in to share with us. They were really yummy and we tried just a few because it was nearly lunchtime. Olivia then helped us travel on the map from the U.K to Mexico using the world map and the ribbon. We got on our class plane together and took off to Mexico. When we arrived Darren the immigration officer asked us our names in Spanish and we got a stamp and a little flag in our passports too. We are heading back to Japan tomorrow for another fun day. Have a great afternoon, stay warm.