Cultures coming together at St Teresa’s

Last week, at school, we celebrated Pentecost. Children dressed up in clothing from their culture. The clothing ranged from headbands to kilts, to lavalavas. There were even children dressed up in Pattu pavadai (Indian clothing from Kerala)! 

The day started with a Pentecost mass at the church. There were beautiful prayers of the faithful in different languages. Including Samoan, Malayalam, Tagalog, Amharic as well as English. 

After the mass, they ate morning tea, then assembled into their school house groups, for the fun activities planned ahead. 

There were 4 activities, and each house group had about 15-20 minutes at each station. At one of the stations, the children got to make ANZAC biscuits. While they waited for their turn to help out they continued collaging a cross the previous groups had started. These would later be displayed showing how they worked together. At another station, they tried dumplings and made paper lanterns and chatterboxes. The dumplings were steamed and we had the choice between soy sauce, and soy sauce and vinegar sauces to dip the dumplings in. At the next station, (the UK) there were even more options! The children could try crepes, Irish dancing, make windmills, listen to the bagpipes and create their own Scottish tartan. Lastly, they were able to create siapo (Samoan patterns), and try coconuts.

Pentecost/Culture Day was fun and we are excited for it to happen again next year!