Love Creek Elementary students explored Hispanic Heritage Month Sept. 15 to Oct. 15 through cross-curriculum, related arts activities.

The yearly observance recognizes the contributions and influence of Hispanic Americans to the history, culture and achievements of the United States.

In Dana Joseph’s music classes, students in kindergarten through second grade were dancing and singing songs in Spanish while performing rhythm patterns to songs such as “Un Poco Loco” from the Disney movie “Coco.” Older students were learning about famous Hispanic artists such as Celia Cruz. 

Technology teacher Mark Hare covered important Hispanic inventors. Library Manager Tejhra Weiland curated books written by and about Hispanic Americans for students to read. 

Fifth-grade students in Forest Allread’s art class created mixed-media, painted plaster masks based on animals and elements from nature within a research-based unit that merges the rich heritage of plaster mask making in Mexico, Lucha Libre freestyle wrestling masks, and the approach to making brightly colored Alebrijes, which are Mexican folk art fantastical creatures. Students made plaster masks and refined their designs in order to paint and finalize their creations.

Fourth-grade art students created glazed ceramic tiles after reviewing Talavera pottery from both Mexico and Spain. Third-graders studied the work of Cuban artists Wifredo Lam and Armando Mariño in order to use metal tooling as a mode for visual art that depicts their own personalized vintage Havana automobile with background scenery. First-grade students painted mixed-media collage, sugar skull artworks for the Dia De Los Muertos/Day of the Dead tradition. 

In Constance Bean’s physical education classes, students participated in a game called “la loteria,” which Bean said she quickly learned was popular at home with some of her students. The game is similar to bingo, in which students use a token to mark spots until they get “loteria.”  

Bean added some physical activity to the game, turning it into a relay race; the first group to get four in a row yelled “Loteria.”  Some students explained they have to fill in the entire “tabla” in order to win when they play with their family or friends. The team that won the round also tried pronouncing the words in Spanish.  

“We will definitely be playing this game again, because the students loved it,” Bean said.

The price of liberty is eternal vigilance.