Esperanza Rising Party

This was a very fun end of the year party that I had with my students this year, after reading the great novel, Esperanza Rising. It was a nice way to celebrate completing 6th grade with my students, and review some Spanish at the same time :).

Though I have very cute pictures of the kiddos enjoying the treats, I'm just sharing ones of the food!  The rules were that, for the most part, the food brought in had to play a role in the novel (each chapter of the novel is named after a food, that also plays a part in that chapter. Since Esperanza is a migrant worker, the food seasons play a pivitol role in the passage of time). I did make a few exceptions - namely cake, because they asked and I wanted to be nice.

 A group of boys made the suggestion to have beef jerky, which is mentioned as a snack in the beginning of the book - they were very excited about this and ended up with at least 4 bags, which were totally demolished.

 Las Uvas (grapes) make an appearance at the beginning and the end of the book, so we had lot of
those.

And for guayabas (guavas) we had guava juice. 

Also, I let them have a pinata filled with candy - the pinata is in the novel, but not the candy. Due to safety, the kids poured the candy out of the pinata instead of smashing it. Not quite as much fun, but still tasty.

With the focus on the food in the book, the party ended up fairly healthy (cake and candy excepted). We put the tables together to make a massive party table and enjoyed celebrating.