StArt- Frida

One of my favorite artist is the Mexican painter Frida Kahlo. I was fortunate enough to see some of her original works and visit one of her homes while staying in Guanajuato, Mexico.

I was very excited to find a children's book that discusses the life and art of Frida Kahlo. We own the Spanish version of this book but it is also available in English. It is worth checking out the book just to see the unique and interesting illustrations.

One of the things that we learned about Frida was that she learned to paint by copying the paintings of other artists while she was bedridden with illness. We had not painted for quite a while so on this lovely autumn day we drug out the easel and painted out in the backyard. The boys (well, Diego) tried to copy some of the paintings from the book. Mateo, who LOVES to paint, had fun mixing colors and ended up painting his arms and face and calling himself "Hulk."

Diego did SEVERAL paintings but one of my favorites was this copy of the skeleton seen below. We will definitely do this process of copying works from different artists again. It was good practice paying attention to detail and sparked his interest in artists.

I am linking this to StArt at A Mommy's Adventures.

Hispanic Heritage Month

In the United States Hispanic Heritage Month is celebrated from September 15th to October 15th. We started our activities on September 16th which happens to be Mexican Independence Day. We talked a little about it the day before but I was surprised at Diego's interest in the day. When he woke up on the 16th, I asked him what day it was, expecting him to say "school day." Instead he sat up and reminded me that it was "el día de la Independencia de México." He, of course, was correct and wanted to immediately start to make a flag of Mexico. So before breakfast he made this flag to take to school to show his teachers. I was particularly impressed that he remembered the eagle with the snake in its beak standing on a cactus. :)

Mateo, of course, had to get in on the action so we tried to make a torn paper flag, thinking that he would love to tear the paper. He was not very interested so the flag was never finished.

We read our favorite book about Mexico, Nos vamos a México several times. There is an English version as well called Let's Go to Mexico. I highly recommend it for preschoolers since the illustrations are beautiful and each page takes you on a journey through different parts of Mexico.

After reading the book, Diego searched the pages for symbols of Mexico to make a "pared de México" (Mexican wall.) One of Diego's favorite things is to make a "wall" of different things we are studying. Our house has become quite colorful.

Finally, we talked a lot about how much Mexico means to our family. We looked at maps and discussed that abuelo and abuela used to live in Mexico. I showed Diego the cities that I have visited in Mexico and we looked at pictures of my travels. Here I am on top of a pyramid outside of Mexico City while on a college trip.

I also pulled out the items in our house that came from family members and my travels around Mexico. Here Diego is posing with an onyx chessboard.
We tried to play "balero." Something that I am convinced I will never be able to do.
I think Diego's favorite part would be the fact that he learned that he has been to Mexico and not his little brother. I was three months pregnant with Diego when I took a group of high school students on a trip to Mexico. He will proudly tell you that he has been to the top of a pyramid but he couldn't see anything. :)

Feliz Cinco de Mayo

I had all kinds of cute crafts and fun ideas of how to celebrate Cinco de Mayo in our household but unfortunately none of them came to be. I am still teaching part-time and I was in charge of our school's Cinco de Mayo program (for the fifth year in a row.) This program included around 100 performers (both student and non-student) and an audience of around 900. Needless to say, as I am writing this in the evening on May 5th, I am exhausted and a poor choice of shoes has left me nearly unable to walk. But the program was a success and the Hispanic students who make up about 20% of our student population were proud to share their heritage.

I would love to move my Cinco de Mayo plans to this weekend but seeing as it is Mother's Day, I am sure that it will not happen. I am not worried. We make sure that our boys are proud of their Mexican heritage all year round. Through the food they eat, the language they speak, the songs they listen to, and our friends and family they are constantly reminded of the beauty of their Mexican side. So even though I let this one slide by this year, we can proudly say, "¡Viva México!"

Mexican Independence Day-activities

This week we did several crafts and planned to attend some events centered around Mexican Independence Day. Unfortunately the rain pretty much cancelled everything this week. We did go to a short program at our local recreation center and D got to play Loteria for the first time. He loved it. I suspect his favorite part was the giant candy bar that he won. Here are some crafts that we did this week.

First, we made maracas. I found three empty plastic bottles and removed the wrappers. I replaced them with blank pieces of paper. The idea was the D would color and decorate them, but he was just not into that this day so I did most of it.

Next, I had D help me find things to put in the bottles that would make noise. Filling the bottles was definately his favorite part. We put rice in one bottle, dry noodles in the second, and coins in the third. He loved counting the coins and figuring out which ones would fit in the bottle. (Quarters were too big.)

Here are the finished maracas. D refused to let me take anymore pictures of him. He often tells me "No mas fotos mami." Both D and little brother M played with them all week. D invented the game "¿Cuál es la maraca más ruidosa?" (Which maraca is the noisiest?). It was a fun, but loud week.

We drew our inspiration from the book Nos Vamos a México (see post below.) We loved the suns in the folk art drawings and decided to make our own. This was a very raining day so the boys painted in the bath tub. After everything and everyone was clean and dry, I drew and cut out the suns.

This is the wall behind our kitchen table. We usually keep it decorated with our art projects. We also made a giant Mexican flag and D practiced his cutting skills by cutting out the cactus. Viva México!

Mexican Independence Day

Since Wednesday was Mexican Indpendence Day, we read several books and did activities centered around the theme of Mexico. My husband's family is from Mexico and it is important to us that they kids not only learn the language but also about their culture and history. Here are a few of the books that we read.

This is a beautiful bilingual book. It is about a little girl who lives in the desert so her entire world seems brown. She looks closely and finds all of the beautiful colors around her.
A beautiful bilingual alphabet book. Every letter is represented by an animal that has been handcrafted by a family of artist in Oaxaca, Mexico.
Nos Vamos a Mexico (Let's go to Mexico) was my favorite book of the week. The illustrations are beautiful and each page shows a different scene of life in Mexico.
This alphabet book is entirely in English and too difficult for my son. He did enjoy looking at the pictures and we will definately check this book out when he is a little older. I would recommend it for older English-speaking children who want to learn more about Mexican culture.