Schoolchildren End Year With Global Flair

Wearing dirndls and yarmulkes, grass skirts and tartan sashes, the 90 kindergartners of Simi Valley’s Hollow Hills Elementary bade farewell to school for the summer Tuesday with a festival of international food and song.

They danced the dances and noshed the food of six nations in a celebration put together by their parents for the last day of class.

“We kind of threw it into the curriculum,” said parent and organizer Linda Zeller, whose son, Bradley, finished kindergarten Tuesday. “In elementary school, I did something like this, and I thought it would be really fun for the kids.”

The children celebrated each nation with the kind of nervous energy and occasional chaos one might expect on the last day of school with only three weeks of rehearsal. Parents looked on adoringly, tracking every jump and shake through the lenses of video camcorders.

Clad in plaid, a dozen and a half children marched out to the skirl of bagpipes played by parent Robert Pedder, then danced a modified jig with arms folded, crossing little sneakers over each other in time to the music.

Another kindergarten class celebrated Japan, with black-garbed boys giving choreographed karate chops and the girls pirouetting in white paper masks while waving painted fans.

Girls in flowered dresses and boys in short-cropped vests wove pastel ribbons around a maypole to commemorate Sweden.

The Israel group donned yarmulkes and sashes with the Star of David for a high-stepping rendition of “Hava Nagila,” dancing in a circle and then all lunging into the center to shout, “HEY!”

Wearing sombreros and paper serapes, children kicked their feet high and clapped in time to the music of Mexico.

And the final class, wearing leis and grass skirts and leggings, “rowed” onto the playground in a cardboard canoe to dance the hula to the rolling beat of drums and the mournful hoot of a conch.

“I thought this was wonderful,” said Mark Hazlewood, whose 5-year-old daughter, Alexa--the youngest of his four children--danced the Scottish jig. Alexa said little, watching other children munching on taquitos, apple pies, rice crackers, tropical fruit, Scottish shortbread and Swedish meatballs.

“The entire school is like this,” he said. “Parent participation is second to none.”

Jane Voss watched son William, 6, eating munchies from other lands after working hard on his karate routine.

“The kids really did a good job,” she said. The children learned about the customs, dances and foods of other countries, she said. Then she chuckled, adding sotto voce, “I think they’re happiest with peanut butter and jelly.”