Our next stop on our schooling journey is Mexico!!! It is just a quick trip to the south. Mexico allowed us a chance to make a lot of art and food, which is always a favorite for the girls.
One of our recipes was Flan! Personally, I love flan, but it was not a huge hit with the girls. What was a huge hit was the churros!!! Both of these were very involved in the making process. For the flan, they had to be baked slowly in a dish of water. For the churros, first, the dough is made on the stove stop. Then it is placed in the piping tube and squeezed and cut into the hot oil. The girls worked really hard at all of it but called it quits with the hot oil.
The recipe that they really enjoyed making and eating was tortillas. Since we did not have a press, they rolled them with a rolling pin. This can be stressful because I wanted circles, but they were not going that way. I relaxed and what happened was an unexpected lesson. They started tying in the shapes of the tortillas to various continents. It reminded me to relax and let learning happen.
We also enjoyed other foods from the country. Tacos, popcorn, rice pudding, and more. It is always fun to have a feast around a common country theme.
Our Mexican adventure also allowed for some fun art. Our first piece was story sticks, which is a mix of American and Mexican Indian traditions. They would normally use some animal leather to draw images to tell a story and then attach them to stIcks. It is like a storybook on a string. We used some cardstock circles for our story board and then attached them to the sticks with additional yarn and feathers.
We also made yarn art to replicate ideas from the native Huichol Indian Tribe from Mexico. They use yarn and beeswax on a variety of surfaces, including bone, to create these colorful patterns and images. The kids drew shapes on paper and then glued their yarn down to fill it in.
Another art project was tin art. For this project you need the type of tin that disposable pans are made of. We cut it into squares and masking taped the edges to prevent injury. Some common Mexican images were printed for the kids to choose from. They placed the image they choose over the tin and the tin on something soft like some foam. Then they used a dull pencil or clay tool to trace their images and leave the indents in the tin. Afterward, they colored in their art with sharpies.
Our final piece we did were Mexican God’s Eyes. These were also made by the Huichol Indians. They were symbols of protection as god’s eye watching over us. These were made with popsicle sticks and yarn wrapped around them.
Mexico was a blast to study and gave us many opportunities to be creative. Hopefully a trip there will be in the future, even if it is just a cruise stop.