Observing Hispanic Heritage Month at the Lower School

Submitted by Janet García-Levitas, Preschool 3 – 3rd Grade Spanish

Hispanic Heritage Month, celebrated nationally from September 15th through October 15th, is an opportunity to honor and recognize the history, culture, and contributions of Hispanic Americans. The holiday first started as Hispanic Heritage Week in 1968, under President Lyndon Johnson and was later expanded to a month-long event by President Ronald Reagan in 1988. This year, Señora García-Levitas’ preschool 3 through third grade students observed this holiday by exploring the twenty-one countries where Spanish is the official language. 

In first grade through third grade, students were introduced to Spanish and Hispanic cultures by learning about where these twenty-one Spanish speaking countries are located across four continents and completing map-related activities. They also surveyed each country’s flag and colored their own versions. In the third grade, students delved deeper into their cultural studies and replicated a flag for each Spanish-speaking country, and then they made a video singing about all the Spanish-speaking countries while students held up their respective flag for different parts of the song where their country was mentioned.  

Students learned about famous Spanish and Hispanic celebrations, such as La tomatina, the world’s largest food fight, in Buñol, Spain, Las Fiestas de San Fermín, a weeklong celebration in Pamplona, Spain, featuring the running of the bulls, and about the lives of children their age in various Spanish-speaking countries. They also learned about some famous Hispanic Americans and observed how various Hispanic American children feel about their heritage and what makes them proud of it. Classes also had the opportunity to learn about different foods eaten in a variety of Spanish-speaking countries and to listen to different styles of music and dance in Spanish. 

It was quite a celebration, and all classes did a wonderful job in completing their assignments and in comparing their own cultures with those of the children in Spanish-speaking countries that they learned about. They look forward to visiting these countries in the future, to learn more about these cultures firsthand and to put all of the Spanish they are learning into practice. The holiday not only gave students a learning opportunity, but a chance to build connections, to embrace creativity, and to have a lot of fun in the process.