¡Que rico! Hispanic Heritage Month at FirstLine Schools

This year, FirstLine schools celebrated Hispanic Heritage Month (September 15th – October 15th) in all sorts of ways! At Green, Special Education Coordinator, Adelaida Melendez, and 3rd Grade Math teacher LeeSandra Moore worked together to incorporate daily celebrations of Hispanic Heritage in the lower school. Every morning, they taught students a short phrase in Spanish – things like “Let’s play!” and “Do you want to be my friend?”

“Kids would ask me if I wanted to be their friend in Spanish all day,” Melendez said.

They also picked a musical artist of the day and discussed their country of origin and their genre with the students before playing a song for them. One day, they even had a conga line. 

Ms. Melendez, who is of Latino descent, noted that it was wonderful to see her own culture being celebrated at Green, and she hopes that Latino students felt the same way. “Most importantly, this project brought in a pride and joy factor for students, and helped them continue to learn about ways to find similarities in others rather than differences.”

Chef educators Alana Neuman and Megan Brummer also provided students with a lesson on making arepas and served the lower school students frijoles (beans) and tortillas on the last day of Hispanic Heritage Month.

Next year, Melendez and Moore would like to have the entire school participate, and have each classroom pick a country to learn about and present what they learn in a school-wide assembly, through a performance or presentation.

At Ashe, the hallways were lined with all kinds of boards celebrating Hispanic Heritage month – from sombreros to country profiles. Ms. Gomez’s 7th and 8th grade Social Studies classes also performed a merengue-salsa fusion dance at the weekly assembly, in awesome costumes! At Live Oak, students decorated Dia de Los Muertos cookies at their annual Fall Fest.

It is wonderful to see students learning about and celebrating all cultures during the school day and beyond. We hope that these kinds of activities – and the amazing staff who facilitate them – teach our students to be strong relationship-builders and global citizens.