Piñata project helps build community for bilingual club

RIO RANCHO — The cafeteria tables were covered in old newspapers. Styrofoam bowls of paste lay scattered across their length. Alien-like round spheres rested at random around the whole scene, dripping with glue and old newspaper print ink. And all of it was surrounded by nearly 30 smiling, laughing, happy kids, all of whom stayed after school Dec. 11 to participate in the bilingual club’s new holiday tradition: paper mâché piñatas.

Headed up by veteran ESL and first-grade teacher Frances Segovia, the bilingual club is an extracurricular group that meets regularly at Puesta del Sol Elementary to build community and connection between bilingual students in a familiar and safe environment.

“It’s not about academics. It’s about getting to know each other and doing activities,” said Segovia. “Some of these kids don’t know each other cause they’re in different classes, so this gives everyone a chance to get to know each other.”

Segovia doesn’t do it alone, however. Students from the RRHS Hispanic Student Union (HSU) are often on hand to help with club activities.

The piñata project was no exception. Roughly a half-dozen RRHS HSU students manned the tables, helping the kids and building their own paper mâché creations.

“The high schoolers, we are so grateful they came out,” said Segovia. “And, I think all of them, except maybe two, came to school here.”

“Mrs. Segovia was our first-grade teacher,” yelled one RRHS student from across the room.

That sense of community is exactly why Segovia started the club: to offer more opportunities for kids to build connections.

“We have a bilingual program [at Puesta del Sol] and its K-5, and every year we have about 120 kids enrolled in that program,” said Segovia. “We really want kids in the bilingual program starting in kindergarten or first grade, but some of the fourth and fifth graders wanted to be in on [the bilingual program] also, so I started this [club].”

On Wednesday afternoon, however, nobody was thinking such lofty thoughts. They were only thinking about tearing newspapers, dipping the shreds in glue and wrapping their balloons (the process for paper mâché piñatas.)

“They can make anything they want. We can make stars or hot-air balloons. It’s really whatever they want it to be,” Segovia said.

Once completed, the creations will be hung around the school cafeteria for all of the students to enjoy.

“Then, after they take them home, they can turn them into piñatas,” said Segovia.

Editor’s Note: In the interest of full disclosure, the Rio Rancho Observer provided the newspapers for this school project.