Buenos dias Venezuela

Our journey for International Month took us to Venezuela today. We travelled there together with Manuel and his mum Rosa and we had a wonderful time there. Most countries in the world have food that is specific to them and Venezuela is no different. We cooked and made “Arepas” which were really delicious. Manuel’s dad, Carmelo usually makes them on the weekend for the family and Manuel loves eating them. We loved eating the ones that his mum made for us today too. Before Rosa started teaching us about Venezuela, we went through our calendar and selected the correct day, date and weather for today; and we did our roll call too. We then sang our good morning song which Rosa learnt quickly so that when it was time for her to sing, she knew what to do. Then it was her turn to be the teacher.

She taught us in a really fun way and we enjoyed the morning with her. First she showed us where Venezuela is on the world map. You could see that it is far away from Tokyo. You have to go all the way across the Pacific Ocean to get there from Japan. She asked us questions to see if perhaps we had the correct answers. One of the questions was “Do you know what the colours of the National bird of Venezuela are?” We guessed red and blue but the colours are yellow and black. The name of the bird is “turpiyal” and it has a beautiful singing voice. The next question was “Do you know what the colours of the Venezuelan flag are?” and we were not sure. We learnt that they are red, yellow and blue. There is also a rainbow shape of seven white stars in the middle. Our last activity was colouring in a flag which we then attached to a stick.

The National Flower is an orchid and the National Tree is called “Araguaney”. The interesting thing about the tree is that it is always yellow. Venezuela is a country that is always hot and the only difference is that it can be hot and dry or hot and wet. If it is hot and wet, this is usually the rainy season. In the mountains there is snow on the peaks and it can be really cold but all year round in the rest of the country, the temperature is quite warm. There is also jungle in Venezuela and beautiful beaches to swim at; and if you go to Coro, you will find a desert with lots and lots of sand.

Venezuela has the world’s highest uninterrupted waterfall called ‘Angel Falls’. The favourite sport is Baseball, just like Japan and one of the traditional toys from Venezuela is called “Perinola”. It is similar to the Japanese “Kendama” and it was such a co-incidence this morning, because we made our own “Perinola” in the morning at one of the activity tables. It is made from wood and has a really small hole and a short piece of string attached to it. You have to try and get the pointy part into the hole. It was much more difficult than the Japanese “Kendama” game.

When it was time to cook, Rosa mixed the cornflour with water and she used her hands for this. She showed us how you mix and mix and mix and then everything is mixed together and if your hands are clean, and then you know that you did a good job. She gave us each a ball and we had to flatten it and then it went into the pan to cook. “Arepas” have many different kinds of fillings and the ones that we could choose from today were avocado mixed with chicken; cheese or ham. They were all so delicious and some of us had two helpings and another one after our lunch. We want to say thank you to Rosa and Manuel for a wonderful morning learning about Venezuela. We would like to visit the country to taste more of their interesting foods and see the desert, jungle, beaches and Angel Falls.

When Rosa was leaving we all said “gracias” which is thank you in Spanish.

We went to the park afterwards but our teachers were worried about the rain, which actually started to fall lightly, so instead of going to the park, we went for a walk in the neighbourhood. We walked up the really steep hill and saw some cars, a few construction sites and some empty houses. Just before going back to school we stopped at the recycle centre and ran around.

We played some games e. g. running and touching the wall; running sideways; running forwards and running backwards. We jumped and had a lot of fun. When we came back into our classroom, we played games with beanbags. We balanced them on different parts of our bodies and moved around the room. When our colour was called, we could swop with someone and then continued playing the game. We balanced them on our heads, arms, held them under our chin, held them between our legs and tried to balance them on the back of our necks.

Thanks for another fabulous day in Petals Class. See you tomorrow for Whacky Wednesday!

Love always Shelley, Hisami and Liezel