Celebrating Hispanic Heritage Month has become one of my favorite traditions at school. This year, while planning our activities with the Culture Committee, we wanted to be very effective and focus on student and staff engagement, so we narrowed some ideas.
We launched the month with our Hispanic Heritage Month, a big favorite, and our music playlist. Nothing like cumbia to start your day! We decorated the foyer with a banner, our doors with Papel Picado, and set up a mural for the photo booth. We decided to keep the Hispanic Heritage Read Aloud Week virtual, in this way we were able to reach members of the community that represented several nationalities and bring them into our classrooms. The books chosen highlighted authentic voices from notable Hispanics, heartfelt stories of the reality of being Latino in the US, and myths from Latinamerican countries. Our students had the chance to see themselves in those stories or to get a glimpse into a different culture.
What really surprised me this year, was the Alebrije contest. Participation ad quality increased tremendously from last year. In my class only, I had 17 alebrijes! It was a tough call to choose one to represent us. After a vote, we selected the blue-winged burro for the school contest. Photos of every class alebrije were posted on our school's Facebook and we asked parents and the public to vote. The engagement was incredible, parents and family members liked, commented, shared, loved, etc. Definitively, we will continue the tradition!
In case you were wondering, yes, our. burro won the contest!!
