Allie in the South of Spain

This week we celebrated St. Patrick's Day at school. We used the holiday to tie in with a English-language themed week that will take place later this spring. The country chosen for this year's English week was Ireland (last year it was England and next year will be USA, USA, USA!). St. Patrick's Day was a good introduction and the girls loved it. We kicked off the week by presenting some important facts about the saint, when he was born, his life and miracles, a little about Ireland etc. These facts were hung throughout the school and were discussed in our girls' English classes. Then first and second grade participated in a coloring contest while third and fourth had a drawing contest. Here are some examples from first grade: And from fourth: We also had the girls do different crafts to decorate the hallways. One was a shamrock (that symbolizes the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit). Another was a rainbow made out of a paper plate. Finally th...

Second graders at my school were recently working on farm animal English vocabulary and they made these super cute sheep to decorate the hallways. All they needed was a few cotton balls, a sheep head design (which was provided for them but that could also be drawn), a black crayon and scissors.      They cut out the sheep's head and then traced their four fingers (basically their hand but not including their thumb, like you were showing the number four on your hand) and colored it in with their crayon. Then they cut it out and glued on the sheep's head. After they added cotton to make the wool. Adorable. And original since each girl's hand is slightly different.  

I have mentioned it before but here in Spain Nativity scenes reign supreme. Since basically everyone is Catholic whether they are practicing or not they celebrate the coming of the 3 Kings/Wisemen rather than Santa. On January 6th when the Wisemen arrived to meet Jesus is when children get most of their gifts here in Spain. People put up their Nativity scenes at the beginning of December and Jose and I are no different (though we have a tree too, read about it here ). Right now we have what is called here the "misterio" or mystery which includes just Mary, Joseph and the baby Jesus (which you put out on Christmas). Other people have huge (and expensive) collections of pieces. They add to them every year. There are all kinds of figures that you can get, a lot of which you know where NOT at the birth of Jesus but are fun all the same. It is a nice tradition to have. One friend told me that as a child her parents would move the Wisemen around the house, changing their position...

This week was kind of a big joke at work. The girls didn't have the interest and the teachers the energy to get a whole lot done. Add to that the fact that we had to move classrooms to another building and you have to get creative to pass the time. I decided to make angels with my first grade classes and they loved it. I then brought the same craft to my fourth grade and they liked it too. It was a nice activity to do on a relaxed day. Here are some examples of the angels my students ended up giving to me as gifts:     Cute, right? All you need is a paper doily, two circles (one larger than the other for the halo, the smaller one for the face), scissors and glue. Even little kids can follow the directions to make the angels since it is pretty basic.    These are the supplies that I gave my girls. They then folded the doily in half and cut it into 2 pieces. One half of the doily becomes the body. The other half is folded into the wings. To make the ...

I recently made this wreath to help decorate for Christmas. It is based on one that I made for my sister´s baby shower. I am not the craftiest person but both of these wreaths are super easy! All you need is: -A wreath form (mine came from Target´s dollar spot when it was half off) -A glue gun -Cupcake wrappers (or coffee filters, which is what I used to make the wreath for the shower) -Scrapbook paper to decorate according to your theme (mine was green, red and white) All you need to do is twist up the wrappers and glue them to the form. It takes a while since there is a lot of space to cover so you need to be patient. Make sure to pay attention to any open spaces or gaps in your wrappers as you glue them. My wreath form was red to begin with so I didn´t mind if there was some peaking through. After it is all covered you can add some decorations to spice it up. I added some pinwheel rosettes made from the scrapbook paper and a sign that says "feliz navidad...

When I was growing up my mom was the queen of holiday decorations. Every time a new holiday rolled around, out came the themed cookie jar, cut-outs, window clings, figurines, trees, calendars etc. I was anti-decoration for a while but I must be getting to be more like her every day since I am starting to do the same, bit by bit. I am starting to accumulate my own collection of holiday decorations, some bought and others crafted thanks to the various blogs and websites I follow. Though here in Spain they don't celebrate Thanksgiving it happens to be my favorite holiday of all. I just had to have one little space to remind me of this day bt I didn't want to spend a lot of money. I decided to keep it simple. I chose our glass cabinet so that they doggie doesn't decide to chew on anything while we are at work. Here is a picture though it is a bit hard to see since we are still missing our camera cable and I had to use Jose's phone:     First I printed out the ...