Students get lesson in culture

By Frances Vanderploeg

Thursday, Nov. 6, 2008 | midnight

Foothills Montessori School student Lauren Wolfgram, 13, is beginning her ninth year at the school, and in that time she's had the opportunity to explore the world's varied cultures at least once each year.

The opportunities have come as part of the school's International Student Day, when each of the classrooms are decorated with items, activities and food traditional to a chosen country. Some of the locales explored have included Canada, Antarctica, China, Egypt, Switzerland and the U.S.

Since the school's inception nearly 10 years ago, the half-day of activities has provided students with a way to travel the world and learn about different cultures without leaving their school.

At the annual event Oct. 30, Wolfgram was spending time in her classroom's version of Canada, where she taught the younger students about Canadians.

The older students get, the more involved they are in the classroom decorating and teaching other students, she said.

"Each year you're in a different class so you get to experience it in different ways," she said.

As part of the fun, students are encouraged to wear outfits that represent a part of their heritage or a place they're interested in.

Traditional dresses, saris and frocks were seen across the campus as students traveled from one classroom to the next.

"This is my favorite day of the year," Paige Tucker said while walking around with her daughter, Rochelle, 7. "They get to experience different parts of the world and see how big and different the world is."

Students traveled from classes where they played table tennis or golf to displays across campus, where they pet Tinkerbell the goat and milked a cow made out of cardboard and latex gloves.

Tucker, a volunteer at the school made a passport for each student that included their name, picture and basic information, as well as pages for stamps for each of the places they visited, similar to a real passport.

Beginning at 8:30 a.m., students spent 20 minutes in each class, allowing them time to see eight of the 10 places.

Gavin Brooks, 10, said now that he's in fifth grade, most of his classmates have participated before, so they know how to decorate the classroom. He and his peers transformed their classroom into Egypt, which included a tomb where students could hunt for hieroglyphics and a corner filled with brown-colored shoe boxes, where students were encouraged to build a pyramid.

"Every year it gets better," he said.

Frances Vanderploeg can be reached at 990-2660 or [email protected].