The Friday before Memorial Day weekend marked the Kindergarten class’s joyful celebration of Frida Friday, now in its fourth year. Created of by Lower School Spanish Coordinator Annalise Porras and in collaboration with Kindergarten teachers and Lower School Librarian Megan Westman, the morning honors the famous Mexican artist Frida Kahlo.

All year long, Kindergarteners built their Spanish skills through fun, real-life situations that encouraged conversation, interaction, and full engagement. The class focused on Mexico, exploring its rich traditions, celebrations, and important figures through immersive, theme-based activities that brought the language and culture to life. Shining a spotlight on Frida Kahlo—the person and the artist—was a wonderful way to close out their year-long study.

To begin the day, Ms. Prindilus, Ms. Pentecost, and Ms. Hayes shared stories about their trips to La Casa Azul—Frida’s childhood home in Mexico City, famous for its vibrant blue walls. As students listened, Ms. Pentecost led an art activity in which they made flower crowns out of tissue paper—similar to those often seen in Frida’s portraits.

Next, Ms. Westman led a read-aloud of the story Frida Kahlo and her Animalitos written by Monica Brown and illustrated by John Parra. While Frida is best known for her dramatic self-portraits, she was also an animal lover, caring for two monkeys, a parrot, three dogs, two turkeys, an eagle, a black cat, and a fawn. Students then made paper puppets of their favorite animals—with the Spanish word for each one on the back.

The celebration concluded in the Black Box Theater with a performance of Los Colores de Frida, a bilingual one-woman show about the great artist, presented by Teatro Sea and The Latino Theatre for Young Audiences.