Planning a school wide, year-end festival to celebrate new language learning is a rewarding challenge!
Whether it is a fiesta, fête, Feier, festum , festa, φεστιβάλ, фестиваль, 節日, 축제
or 祝祭, start planning right at the very beginning of the school year for two reasons. One, late year rehearsal time or access to the performance space to practice is usually limited during the regular school year. Two, using regular class time as ongoing “rehearsal” insures that children will “perform” best with very familiar material and routines learned and regularly reinforced. After almost ten years of producing my annual fiestas, I wish to share the following pointers to simplify and pave the way to a successful event.
WHEN? Set the May or June date early in the year as you compete for time with other events at the end of the year. Your date will then appear early in the school calendar for maximum visibility. (An individual class count-down to fiesta day is fun for number reinforcement.) Choose a day of the week other than Monday to ease into the big day. Don’t hesitate to request a “professional day” to be able to devote my time to just one school on fiesta day if you travel between schools. However, be prepared to move the date again if snow days change the last day of school. Reserve the entire day and don’t schedule everything back-to-back to allow for some personal down time
Here is my schedule from last year’s fiesta from a notice send to all parents and staff members:
“FIESTA” SCHEDULE
7:00 - 9:15 Decorating all-purpose room (Volunteers??)
9:15 - 10:15 2nd, 3rd, & 4th graders perform for everyone; first graders are our special guests
10:45 - 11:30 Mexican piñatas for second graders
1:15 -2:00 Spanish procession and tossing of the pelelé for third graders
2:15- 3:00 Bolivian “musical chairs” for fourth graders
3:00 – 3:30 Take down decorations; clean up (Volunteers??)
Parent and faculty volunteers come and decorate with papel picado and paper chains made by the children, along with additional crepe paper streamers, and posters in the early morning before children and buses arrive. Children excitedly pass through the entrances to the gym covered with strips of crepe paper streamers. Spanish cultural music plays continuously to keep everyone’s excitement high.
WHERE? A gymnasium, auditorium, cafeteria, or all-purpose room designed in the round is best, although some teachers prefer the festival to take place wholly or partly out-of-doors. If outside, be prepared for weather postponements due to rain, wind, and extremely hot weather. Notify the physical education teacher at the beginning of the year of your intentions, so s/he can plan an alternate lesson. Remind him/her again in May.
WHO? The Goodwin School “entertainers” are from second, third, and fourth grade. The entire school – pre-kindergarteners, kindergarteners, and first graders who do not study Spanish and all staff members and administrators – is the audience. The first graders are the “guests of honor” to prepare them for starting Spanish next year and have a special place to sit. Parents, Board of Education members, and district administrators should receive a special invitation at least two weeks before the event. If space permits, consider inviting members of your local senior citizens center as well. Contact the local newspaper several weeks before the event to ask for a photographer and a reporter. Don’t forget involving the school custodian in your plans as his/her support and cooperation can make or break the day. Enlist the help of an instructional assistant to take digital photos.
WHAT? Plan special grade level cultural activities with color and variety in mind -- songs, games, chants, rhymes, dancing, parades, and short skits. Each selection should appeal to you as teacher and the children, have relevance to the specific unit of the curriculum, and contain real potential for dramatization. The material should be culturally authentic and in the target language.
In mid-May I compile a list of all songs, chants, skits, and poems the children have learned and post it on large chart paper by grade level. Every class votes for its favorites with “ballots.” I pass out three strips of construction paper to each child, classroom teacher, and instructional assistant. No writing on the paper “ballots” takes place, however. Instead, each person hands me their vote(s) as I circulate in the class. Everyone votes three times for just one selection or splits votes to one, two, or three choices. We tally aloud the votes, and a child enters the total number in the correct column. I cover up the class’s column when I go to the next class so that no one knows what the other class has voted to be fair. Classes, in turn, perform the selections to which they gave the highest votes.
The fiesta begins with a parade of flags of all Spanish-speaking countries, introduced one-by-one by continent. The fourth graders choose flags and travel posters they wish to carry during regular class time. Children hold extra-large laminated ones made of poster board and fadeless construction paper. The fourth graders line up in the hallway outside the gym. Each country group walks up the stairs to the stage, pauses at a red “x” on the floor made with removable floor tape, and faces the audience as I announce the name of the country. They then place the flags and posters on a table before descending the stairs and finding their seats. (Options for other languages would be to show state or province flags of the targeted countries/regions instead.) The program continues with the individually voted-on piece from each class which takes about five minutes per class. Representatives from each grade dance La raspa to end the school-wide festivities.
All pre-kindergarteners, kindergarteners, and first graders are invited to view the rest of the events of the day. Each teacher decides when to visit the festivities.
Before lunch, second graders return to break piñatas, selected and voted for beforehand. (The physical education teacher always plays “Tarzan” in the early morning to hang a hook from the ceiling for the piñatas, filled with inexpensive novelties and minimal candy treats from Kipp Brothers.
The items relate to vocabulary from the second grade curriculum (i.e. plastic loros [parrots] and peces [fish.]). Must-have items are miniature bouncy balls which soar to the gym ceiling to the delight of all as the piñata breaks. The children have practiced beforehand La piñata song by José-Luis Orozco,
role-played how to break a piñata safely with mask and plastic bat while wearing a blindfold, and made colorful sombreros that they wear. The prizes go on a tray for distribution later in take-home bags. The child breaking open his/her class’s piñata takes it home as well.
The third graders march in an Iberian feria (fair) parade holding small flags of the Spanish provinces which we salute formally. We say “Su majestad” [Your majesty] to pictures of the king and queen of Spain, too. All children carry individual cultural items such as a plush lion, red and yellow large crepe paper flowers, castles, and flamenco dancer figures while Spanish procession music play. (Names out of a hat determine beforehand who carries what.) Leading the procession is a group of children carrying a giant pelelé [puppet-doll]. We shout, "¡El pelelé! ¡El muñeco! ¡El títeré! ¡Arriba!" to maintain the rhythm necessary for a good upswing of arms. The children, spaced equally around the perimeter, toss him up in the air with a king-sized blanket. Teachers and parents participate in male vs. female teams, together with the boys and girls, throwing him up to touch the rafters! A rifa [raffle] of prizes for which the children have filled in their raffle tickets ahead of time finishes their celebration.
The fourth grade cultural activity is a variation of musical chairs from Bolivia from International Playtime : Classroom Games and Dances from Around the World by Wayne E. Nelson and Henry ''Buzz'' Glass (ISBN 0866539905). Authentic Bolivian music plays while a child dances around the perimeter of a circle of chairs placed in wheel formation. The number of chairs set up is the number of children minus one. Children in the chairs remain seated looking forward, not to the side or back. The dancing child has a red handkerchief in hand which s/he drops to the side of any row of chairs. When the row of children sees the child running around the circle without the handkerchief, they jump out of their chairs and chase him/her. The child who does not get a seat in the empty row is the next dancer. Before the next dance, a parent volunteer draws a card with a geography word in Spanish from South América (i.e. rainforest, Andes Mountains) from a large decorated food service can from the school kitchen, matching a duplicate card hanging on the back of a chair in the wheel formation. The child facing that card wins the privilege of choosing a prize from the prize table.
HOW? Props are very important to convey the meaning of any selection whether musical or non-musical. Children can hold large laminated colored pictures or posters (at least 8-l/2 x 11”) or carry large pieces of realia to show key objects. Young boys and girls love to wear inexpensive and easily made “costumes” made of crepe paper streamers, masks, and decorated headbands and hats to signify particular characters. Students enjoy creating their own props which enables them to become comfortable and skilled in conveying the meaning of the selection to others. The PTO or my administrator has covered costs of craft materials exceeding my budget. Each class receives a grocery bag full of props beforehand to bring to the performance.
Regarding music, children should be able to sing the selected songs without formal recorded musical accompaniment and with much animation and pantomime. Parent audiences really respond best to a capella children’s voices. Trying to coordinate lots of tapes and CDs can be a nightmare. In addition, the playing of authentic musical instruments adds to the flavor of any performance, whether as the main attraction or a simple, rhythmic transition between class presentations.
Accustom your classes to get ready by always saying, “Attention! Ready? One, two, three…” in the target language. Getting accustomed to a performance routine from the very beginning insures that the comfort level for everyone involved will be high during the whole community celebration as children “perform” best with familiar material. Formal rehearsing in-class two weeks or so ahead of time is enough to prepare everyone. If possible, though, I try to bring each class out to the black top a couple of days before the fiesta date to practice “spreading out” in the center for our in-the-round performances if the real venue is not available. Be prepared for some "goofs" which add to the realness and charm of viewing young children in the spotlight.
Lastly, using a battery-operated cordless microphone to announce the program is best to save the teacher's voice. I compose a seating chart for a “theater in the round” style performance and distribute it to teachers beforehand with children sitting on the gym floor. Adults sit on folding chairs placed on the perimeter of the room.
WHY? An enjoyable annual school-wide festival where the entire community from both inside and outside of the school attends and all students enthusiastically participate supports the last of the 5 C’s:
Communities — Participate in Multilingual Communities at Home and Around the World
Standard 5.1: Students use the language both within and beyond the school setting.
Standard 5.2: Students show evidence of becoming lifelong learners by using the language for personal enjoyment and enrichment.
Everyone benefits from this end-of-the-year celebration. (I am on a high for days after, being so proud of my students. :) Of course, it is extremely worthwhile as a means to promote an early language learning program. The ultimate goal is internalization of previously learned material so children share their new language enthusiastically with others outside of the classroom setting. Parents and children happily report of presentations of parts of the program on the bus and at home for family members as well for visitors long after the festival has ended.
Have fun designing your own world language festival! Click here to access my photo album of past fiestas at Goodwin to inspire you.
