Palisades Elementary held International Day at the campus on Via de la Paz on May 30. The five countries highlighted, India, Kenya, Korea, The Netherlands and New Zealand, were selected because of the school parents who are immigrants from those countries or have family living there.
Principal Joan Ingle said that International Day had been held years ago, but had been replaced by Olympic Days.
“Since the World Olympics are every four years, we decided to return to International Days in the off years,” Ingle said, noting that students were divided into mixed groups, kindergarten through fifth grade. Each group visited a country’s booth before rotating to the next location.
Booths were decorated with the flag, currency, maps and photos of landmarks, musical instruments, spices and other objects specific to that country.
While “visiting” Korea, students were led through some basic Tae Kwon Do positions, and then allowed to try on elaborate costumes.
At the Indian booth, students tried introductory yoga poses.
In the area of the playground devoted to Kenya, students participated in a relay race carrying potatoes on a plate. At New Zealand, youth played rugby and then learned a traditional Maori dance.
Perhaps the most amusing activity of the day was the “build” the dike relay at The Netherlands booth. After choosing a team captain, individual members hopped in a gunnysack to the site of the “dike” (a blue plastic sheet on the playground). The student got out of the sack and then placed a small sand bag in the space specified by the captain. The racer than ran back to the line to give the sack to the next student.
The object was to stack as many sand bags as possible on site and in the strongest arrangement. When a whistle blew, all hopping came to a standstill and a large bucket of water was dumped in front of the sandbags. The winning team was the one that built the sturdiest wall withstanding the deluge.
After each student had participated in all of the activities, they watched performances by Maori, Korean and Indian dancers.
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