Hello. My name is Laura. I am from Michigan. I am majoring in elementary education at madonna University and for one of my class, I have to come up with a cultural center - and with my grandparents being from Latvia, I have chosen to bring Latvia into my classroom :)
I was wondering if anybody knows if there is anywhere I would be able to get some Latvian children’s books (either in english or Latvian) or if anybody knows any interesting activities that would be fun for kids to do, pretaining to the Latvian culture??
Any help would be greatly appreciated.
Thank you!
Laura

Hi Laura.

I’m surprised no one has responded to your post, yet, so, I guess that leaves me.  I never head of Madonna University in Livonia (fancy that), Michigan, til I happened to google it; very interesting!

As to your question about Latvian children’s books, what readily comes to my mind is Amazon.com.There may be other resources out there, libraries, etc. (ahem…where are the rest of you folks—McT, Pete, Robert???).  And I don’t know whether you already are familiar with Garezers, the Latvian camp, cultural center in Three River’s Michigan.  But it may be worth trying to contact them at 5722 Lone Tree Rd., Three Rivers, MI (269-244-5441.

You may have more creative, elaborate ideas/plans about your cultural center/activities, but I always think music is a versatile, fun thing for all ages (learning songs, folk dances).  When I majored in elementary ed., I taught some of the kids simple Latvian fok dances (Sudmalinas, Tudalin’ Tagadin’).  It was great fun, for me as well.  Balticshop.com has Latvian children’s music available.  And you may want to try   http://folklora.lv/  and http://www.liis.lv/deja/index.htm.  The last has fokdances that you can watch, listen to.

Good luck!

Irena

For some reason the last link, Martina deju gramata, which I have bookmarked and copied, pasted is not being found, so, I’ll try again.

http://www.liis.lv/deja/index.htm

Irena

Wow, thank you so much. I did try Amazon.com and found a book…The Dream Mouse (or something like that, I cannot remember the exact title), but it’s a folktale from Latvia.

I am going to try to get some of the folk music to bring in…and you are right, music is always a fun way to learn.

Thank you again for your suggestions.

Laura

Try
http://alausa.org/
click on

For stuff online try
Wezzā Sumpurņa Filmu Zāģētava
http://www.wsfz.com/index.htm

OK…I’ve been bad, Irena.  But I’m having some problems with the new LOL…and it assigned me a new password which I can’t remember and…excuses all…

So…yes, lots of latvian/baltic options in your neighborhood (Michigan).  Interesting enough for the kids to know that the town they live in (Livonia) is a name of baltic derivation. 

How about teaching them the Happy Birthday customs in Latvia?  Kids always like to know how other countries celebrate something differently than they do.  The song is different.  The practice of names days and birthdays is quite different.

Also…the story (which is online in a bunch of places) of how Latvia claims to have been the source of the first Christmas tree.

For folktales…my kids loved the tales of Lacplesis, Bearslayer.  And there’s an english translation online…you can access it from this site (LOL).  My son even had a Lacplesis birthday party for his 9th birthday…the kids loved it.  They learned how to weave vainagi out of fresh flowers…they learned how to tell their futures with a Lielvardes josta, etc.

Considering you’re in Michigan, surely you can find someone to show them an ethnic dress and you can show them the jostas and other parts of the costumes that tell you where exactly the dress is from.

The folk dancing idea is a great one.  I mentioned Maskackis Spelmanis’ CD that has instructions for dances with it…maybe someone in your area would have access to it.

Also kids love to try different food.  Piragi…black bread…dzervenes preserves…what else?!  Lots of interesting things to try.

Ahhh…it’s coming up on easter.  How much fun would it be to show them how to dye easter eggs the latvian way…with onion skins, flowers, etc.  No PAZ dye tablets there.  It’s an interesting and easy thing to do.  And then they can have egg wars…not food fights…but where you tap each other’s eggs to see who cracks first.  And there are lots of other traditions tha go with Easter…the swing songs, etc.
Enough for now.

See…I knew we could count on you, Susanna, for lots of good ideas.  I had completely forgotten about Lacplesis, Bearslayer, something I think which would particularly appeal to boys, who might not be that thrilled about having to hold hands with, be close to, of all things— A GIRL!  Funny, my husband and I were just recalling some of our own experiences (something BTW, which my master teacher said was a big NO, NO, cardinal sin, to ever compare yourself, your own childhood to those of the children of today, but I still think there’s some legitimate carry over in this case) in school; I remembering just loving the dances we learned, he, recalling how he dreaded being paired with certain girls, but, you get over it, look back, laughing, at least chuckling.

Actually, I think story telling is wonderful, something which can be a base for incorporating other activities.  I did my fair share of subbing, along with student teaching and I found that even in the most unruliest of classrooms, that story hour was a Godsend.  It usually calmed even those with the shortest of attention spans.  And for me, it was like honing, cultivating my acting skills, doing a bit of play acting;  there is an art to being a good storyteller, afterall, but that’s a whole other theme of a different story, however enthusiasm, is a good thing, has a way of being infectious.

Irena

Thank you all of you for all of your help. I wish that I had more time to work on this…unfortunately I have to get everything together by Monday night. Your suggestions are all wonderful, and I may just have to take them to my actual classroom some day.

Thanks again!
Laura

As a very occasional visitor to this site I often arrive here after the last tram has left.  There some very simple dances (tudaliņ, tāgadiņ for example) and many tales.  However, I would hope that the assignment showed the strength of character of a nation beset by invaders over many centuries and that today stands tall.