By Cyndi Goodrich
Moapa Valley Progress
It was time to grab the passports last week and head over to Grant M. Bowler Elementary School. The Bowler fourth grade class planned and prepared a week-long presentation of international fun. From music and dancing to histories and cultures, the annual “Around the World Festival” brings a rich diversity of international flavors, sight and sounds to the community.
As early as February this year, students began preparing for the event by picking out a country that they wanted to report on.
The first step was for each student to write a letter to the embassy of their chosen country. Sometimes the student will get lucky and get a reply.
After spring break, the students get started on their reports. Fourth grade teachers agree that this is a great way to incorporate the current Curriculum Essentials Framework or CEF. It includes paragraph writing, main ideas, research and study skills, computer skills, highlighting, documenting and outlining. It also teaches kids about the pitfalls of plagiarizing and how to avoid them.
Cultural music and dance was recently incorporated into the activities. Students performed a program on Wednesday which was led and organized by music teacher, Trish Anderson. Students sang, danced and played a variety of instruments in music from various countries around the world. The program was performed for a crowd of Bowler students and parents.
On Thursday, attendees could take a Walk Around The World. Students set up booths to display information and materials about their chosen country. In the past this part of the festival always had the displays line up in the hallways of the school so that they could be viewed one by one. But, this year, due to construction in the building all of the student displays were gathered in the multi-purpose room. The room was an impressive sight of students learning and sharing. Students wore costumes representing their countries.
Some of the displays included foreign currency. Others included photographs from the country. Some children had built replicas of native homes, buildings or other attractions in their country. Country flags lined all of the walls.
One interesting display was done by Josh Cox. He had an original piece of the Berlin Wall on display. The chunk was nearly fifty pounds and painted in red, yellow and black.
Another fun display exhibited by Camille Hardy was of an Irish home, made of stone. Camille also had a pipe and a cane and the luck of the Irish….Shamrocks.
The final event of the week was the Around the World Buffet held on Friday. Children were invited to bring a food item that is customary for their country to share with their classmates. The food was a plenty and some of it was very curious. No doubt attendees could easily recognized the tacos, rice and pies. But there were other foods that were strange and different. There was Thuringer from Luxemburg, Onigiri from Japan, Panipopo from Tonga and Mandazi from Kenya.
“The best part of the buffet was that after it was over we (the students) got a really long break,” said Grady Call. “That was fun because we’ve been so busy, we didn’t get very many breaks early this week.”
Around The World Week is over but the students will not soon forget the facts about their chosen country or that the fun they had doing it.
