Mommy Camp Around the World: Spain

Week two of Mommy Camp focused on a country close to my heart, Spain! As a Spanish teacher and past visitor to the beautiful country, I was pretty excited to share a little of it's culture and color with my kids. We learned about bullfighting and flamenco. Got crafty with some culture based projects. Made some delicious food and got inspired by Picasso, Miró and Gaudí.

Before we could experience Spain we had to "fly" there first! We got the dramatic play airport items and travel stuff. The kids were issued new tickets from Brazil to Spain (Brazil was last week) and took a plane ride. It was just as fun this week as the first when we travelled to Brazil. You can see how I created all of the dramatic play airport items in this post.

Lilly was pretty excited about our pretend trip and ticket.

The security area with "x-ray" baggage check is very popular.

Arthur was the pilot this week!

Once we "landed" the kids were able to enter the area I set up to represent Spain. I created a mural of sorts using brown butcher paper and oil pastels. On their table I placed the books for the week, two Spanish fans, some fake euros and castanets. We also looked at the map to discuss where we travelled and the weather there versus the weather where we live. Then we watched this video about Madrid.

Once we had "landed" it was time for breakfast. We made magdalenas which are a very eggy lemon muffin that is popular in Barcelona. You can find the recipe in my original MC post that includes ALL of the recipes! (I had planned to make something different and save these for later when we focused on Barcelona but these were quick and we were hungry!) After eating we learned about Miró and his art, watched this video and created Miró inspired art by looking at google images.

Zesting a lemon for the Magdalena muffins.

Arthur had to help too.

Mixing the dough. I forgot to snap a picture of them when finished but, they just look like yellow muffins. :) They tasted nice.

Getting inspired by Miró.

Arthur just did a little scribbling. He get's really excited when he's given a marker.

Lilly's finished Miró inspired drawing.

After all of that fun we learned a little about bull fighting by reading the book "The Story of Ferdinand" and then watching the cartoon. We discussed how the practice of bull fighting is not nice even though it is a popular element in Spanish culture. Then we created a toilet paper tube bull using a free printable from crayola. We also watched a video of men in Spain doing the Corrida or bull fighting dance. Before nap we also had a blast playing a popular hand clapping game called "Mariposa" we literally spent at least 40 minutes doing this over and over again. They loved it!

Once we finished learning about bull fighting, we focused on flamenco. We started out by reading the book "Lola's Fandango". We also listened to it using the CD that came with the book. Then we played with some flamenco dancer finger puppets that I made, colored a worksheet, made castanets and Spanish fans and even attempted to learn a few flamenco steps using this video. ​

I sketched out these dancing figures onto a piece of cardboard that was leftover from the tambourine pie pans of Brazil week. Then I cut them out. Easy and fun!

Flamenco dancer finger puppet!

They were both proud of their flamenco coloring sheets.

Making castanets was SUPER easy! A piece of cardboard with two buttons hot glued and the cardboard folded in half. Voila!

Once they were made, they colored the outside portion of the cardboard.

Lilly posing like a flamenco dancer.

Making the fans was also very easy. All you need is construction paper, hot glue, two popsicle sticks and a small rubber band. I used a tiny hair elastic.

After they decorated their paper, we accordion folded it and got glued the popsicle sticks to both end. Then I wrapped the two sticks together with the hair elastic.

So silly! You'll have to excuse the mostly naked baby. This is how I roll.

Attempting to learn a few flamenco steps.

Arthur thought his fan was really fun...for hitting with. It was promptly taken away.

We ended the day with breakfast for dinner by making Spanish tortilla and churro waffles. Both recipes can be found at my original MC post. Let me say, those churro waffles were Ah-May-Zing! Lilly helped with making them and everyone had seconds!

Our final focus was on famous artists from Spain. First we discussed Picasso and looked at some of his art. Then we created our own Picasso inspired cubist portrait paper bag costumes inspired by this website. They literally spent at least 20 minutes walking around with paper bags on their heads and giggling whenever they ran into anything. It was hilarious! We also had a Spanish inspired lunch of bocadillos which is just a fun way of saying sandwiches. We ended our Spain week by learning about Antoní Gaudí. We watched this fantastic video for kids about him and then worked on our own mosaic animals. Lilian, however, got a bit bored with the detail required to complete it and ended up coloring a large portion of her unicorn yellow. She is only 5 so coloring any portion with "tiles" was good with me. Arthur wanted nothing to do with it and was promptly put down for a nap after writhing in the floor in protest.

And here are my horrible photoshopped pics of our trip!

We had a great time on our "visit" to Spain! Next week we're off to Italy! There'll be a dramatic play italian restaurant, lessons about the opera and so much more! I can't wait!