Cindy, I can’t believe how large your group is! That’s a ton of kids, and a giant activity for everyone to pull together. Wow!!! I’d love to try a group like this. We have our “small” group with over 100 families, but we haven’t done anything with them in about a year. We have our giant co-op with a couple hundred families, but the kids are broken down into ~175 classes of 10-16 kids. So while we see the same people around the halls, we’ve only recognized one person on the several fields trips we’ve attended. Looks like you have an awesome group!
SPANISH FIESTA
- By : Cynthia
- Category : Homeschool Co-op, Kids - Amanda, Kids - Emily, Kids - Josh, Kids - Nathan
Homeschool Co-op
5
Ididn’t take the time to load a link for La Bamba so you’ll need to hum it to yourself as you read this post. (LOL).
Our co-op decided to do Spanish this year. It’s been a great introduction to the language and culture. For our 2nd end of unit celebration we decided to have a Fiesta. We invited all of the parents, grandparents, and other interested people (LOL).
Here Josh’s class is making maracas for a song they will perform. They made them a few weeks ahead of time so they could practice.
The night before the Fiesta, my mom, mil, Emily, and I cut up almost 10 gallons of oranges, lemons, limes, and strawberries for the virgin Sangria. We also mixed in pineapple which turned a really dark purple because it’s soaked overnight in grape juice. The first picture is before it soaked and the second picture is after everything has soaked awhile.
We have three Spanish teachers who helped organize the Fiesta. One of them made arrangements for a local tortilla making family to come and demonstrate how to make authentic tortillas. Here Josh is trying to get his to resemble the right shape.
Here Mrs. Tortilla Maker is bringing the dough around for each of the kids to roll out. Mr. & Mrs. Tortilla made these ahead of time so the kids could spend their time rolling them out instead of mixing them up. In the second picture you can see Mr. Tortilla demonstrating the proper way to roll out the tortillas.
Here is Emily working on her tortilla with her friends.
After the kids finished rolling them out, they took them to the kitchen where Mr. Tortilla and the Grandmas fried them.
Then they went back to the gym to enjoy them! Emily and her friend are being goofy.
Here is one of our Spanish teachers talking about how we can thank Mr. & Mrs. Tortilla by purchasing some of their tortillas.
After the tortilla making during our Opening Session, the kids went to their classes and the Grandmas went to work fixing the food for our Fiesta. We honestly couldn’t have done this without all of the Grandmas’ help. In the front of this picture is our family friend, Bonnie. She’s a DEDICATED “grandma”. She comes every Monday and she doesn’t even have a grandchild in the co-op. She’s adopted all of our kids, I think.
This is as good a place as any to show my mom and her “apron.” She has always clothespinned a towel to her shirt while cooking. One of her relatives sent her a “real” apron from Arizona so she wouldn’t have to do this. She tried it for a day and went back to her towel. I think she didn’t want to get her apron dirty.
It’s such a small world. This is my friend Kim and her mom. Years ago her mom, on the right, and Tim’s mom were friends in school. Now, all of these years later Kim and I are friends and our kids LOVE to play with each other. If you’ve read the blog long you’ve seen pictures of Nathan and his curly-haired preschool friend. This is his mom and his grandma. It’s fun that the grandmas know each other from years ago. Kim’s mom made ALL of the flan for our Fiesta. Here they are dishing it up. It was SO GOOD!In other parts of the kitchen, the other grandmas.. this is Tim’s mom on the left with her long time friend from the previous picture on the left…..were making Chalupa which is a Mexican Stew. They cut up over 30 pounds of pork, an entire Costco sized bag of onions, 3 Costco sized bags of avacados, pounds of tomatoes, etc. There were 11 crockpots full of Chalupa. Here everyone is helping get the Sangria in the cups and to the tables.
Some girls from one of the Spanish classes made this sigh and we put it at the main doorway into the gym.
Here our stage is decorated and ready for the program.
This is one of those events that was organized, but every single minute detail was not. We had a bare bones budget so we didn’t purchase any decorations, table coverings, etc. We asked everyone from co-op to bring what they had and we would figure out what to do with it all that day. You can see by the looks of the stage that it all worked out just fine. And, we had plenty of things to use to decorate the tables as well. Here’s one of the tables. Every table was different since we used what people brought and no two things were alike.
Here we are as everyone is sitting down to eat. There were over 120, but I didn’t take an exact count.
After dinner, everyone joined in the Mexican Hat dance which was taught by some of the Dialectic kids. You can see Amanda in the center of the bottom of this picture. We were excited that she came to the dinner and joined in the activities. Here she is talking to the kids who are “calling” the dance.
Here everyone is circled around to start the Mexican Hat Dance.
circling in….
I’m not sure which part of the dance this is, but it looks like Amanda is having fun!
Here is another one of our Spanish teachers, my friend, Jill. You might recall seeing her in the blog post awhile back when we went to the Fall Ball. Here she is dancing again! She LOVES to have fun. Without her I wouldn’t have tried the Fall Ball…
Tim’s helping Nathan with one of the clapping parts. 
At the end of the night all of these crockpots were lined up in the hallway waiting for their owners to come find them. We planned the food pretty close and ended up with not too many leftovers, but just enough for a few families to take some home to parents or kids who weren’t able to attend. We had a couple out with the flu.
The Fiesta was a LOT of work for several of us, but I think we all decided it was well worth the time and effort. The kids had a great time presentings some of their songs, conversations, etc., that they’ve been working on so far. The little preschool kids also had a song to present which I’ll try to upload as a You Tube thing later when I have a few more minutes.
At the end of the night all of these crockpots were lined up in the hallway waiting for their owners to come find them. We planned the food pretty close and ended up with not too many leftovers, but just enough for a few families to take some home to parents or kids who weren’t able to attend. We had a couple out with the flu.
The Fiesta was a LOT of work for several of us, but I think we all decided it was well worth the time and effort. The kids had a great time presentings some of their songs, conversations, etc., that they’ve been working on so far. The little preschool kids also had a song to present which I’ll try to upload as a You Tube thing later when I have a few more minutes.
