Celebrating Cultures

The last few days in Pre-K have been spent with cultural celebrations. On May 1st we celebrated May Day...which is known as lei day in Hawaii. We made construction paper and straw lei. I love having the children make these every year. They look so colorful!

On May 5th, we celebrate Boys' Day (Japanese) as well as Cinco de Mayo (Mexican). Typically I usually only teach about Boys' Day on May 5th, but one of our teachers is from Mexico so I add a little bit of Cinco de Mayo in to honor her. 

For Boys' Day, we talked about the windsocks that are hung by Japanese families in the hopes that their children will grow up to be determined and strong like the koi fish that swim upstream. During circle time I brought senbei (Japanese rice crackers) for all the children to try as a treat. Our small group activity was to make koi windsocks. The children had a lot of fun! 

The first step was to cut out the white fish. The children used that to trace on a piece of construction paper for the backing. 

Then the children were invited to decorate their fish. We taped the fish to a paper towel roll to create the circle for the mouth. 

Miss Kapua's sample! 

At the end of the activity, we took a class pic and I hung them in our window. 

For afternoon snack, we celebrated Cinco de Mayo. We made guacamole! 

Ingredients: avocado, tomato, white onion, cilantro, guacamole mix, and tortilla chips. 

The children used a plastic fork to help smash the avocado and mix everything together. They also used a plastic knife to help cut the cilantro.

Doesn't it look delicious?

Snack time! (Many of the children actually liked it. I was pleasantly surprised by that.)

Stay tuned for more cultural celebrations and activities from the Pre-K kiddos. May is culture month for us!

-Miss Kapua