Family Fun > Brazil Themed Party
http://www.bbcgoodfood.com/howto/guide/top-10-foods-try-brazil
photo description, recipe
This website has 17 active games that would be good for a party. Some of them are very similar to our games, such as dodgeball, hot and cold, blind man’s bluff, and capture the flag. Others are less familiar. There are no photos, but some have drawings.
In Brazil, they speak Portuguese. Use this website to learn how to say a dozen different phrases like, “I’m so hungry” or “I have a secret for you.” Just choose the phrase you want to hear, then click the button to hear it spoken. Try to repeat, then click the button to hear it again. Make the kids have to say, “I’m so hungry” before they get to try the food!
The summer olympics 2016 give the perfect excuse to help your kids find out all about Brazil. Making it fun is key, but it doesn’t have to be expensive or elaborate, it just needs to be interactive--use all the senses.
It can also be a little daunting to plan an event about a place you know nothing about. The internet is a great resource, but it can take days to find material that is fun for kids: just because a website is made “for kids” doesn’t mean that it will have anything useful--the page about Brazil is likely to have a list of facts about Brazil (no kid is going to want to read that, or find it interesting!) So I have done the work for you--to find resources, then give ideas on how to use them.
A fun way to kick off the party might be to watch the Disney movie, “Rio.” It is a cartoon about a bird that visits Rio. It might spark interest to find out about the real Rio.
Food is one of the funnest ways to experience a country without actually going there.
Looking at photos of food is not much fun for kids--they want to taste it!! So put in a little extra effort, and tickle their tastebuds. If you don’t mind spending a bunch of money, you can take them to a local Brazilian steak house. Most of us can’t afford that, so try downloading some recipes and getting adventurous at home.
Brazil is reported to have over 300 kinds of fruit! Let your kids try several varieties that they have never eaten before. Your supermarket might have some--be it mangos, papayas, or starfruit. Mix it in with some that you have eaten, such as pineapple and bananas. See this website for photos and description of 30 fruits so you know what to look for--some you have heard of, but most you probably haven’t!
With fruits so plentiful, you can see why juice bars are so popular in Brazil. Make your own juice bar with different kinds of juice, and little paper cups, for your kids to first taste test the various juices, and then mix up their own concoctions. Most grocery stores carry orange juice, pineapple juice (don’t get canned--it tastes like a can!) and mango juice. You might find guava juice or passion fruit juice at Walmart on the isle where they sell Mexican food.
Who doesn’t love a truffle? Your kids will have fun making them, but more fun eating them! See this website for how to make the Brazilian version. The sight is not very easy to get around in, but does look like it has some interesting recipes.
This site only has 30 recipes, and it ALSO has a button that takes you to Amazon to buy special ingredients that you might not find in your local supermarket. Many of the recipes don’t require anything special, such as the photos shown here, for grilled chicken, mango and kale salad, and brazil nut cookies.
BBC has compiled photos and recipes for 10 top Brazilian foods. A few of them look like they take a lot of work!
Music is another of the fun ways to experience a country without actually going there.
This website has photos and descriptions of all kinds of interesting musical instruments. As interesting as that might be, it’s not as fun as hearing actual music. At the bottom of their web page, there are short clips of music so you can hear the real thing, and a button to download Spotify to hear the whole song. Fill your house with the sounds of Brazil with music off of Spotify. You will not be able to keep your feet from tapping the floor! I bet your kids start dancing as soon as they hear it! One of the photos is the one above that have maracas made out of pop cans. You can have your kids fill empty cans with rocks, uncooked rice or beans, then tape over the holes in the top to keep it inside. Each one can have a different sound with different stuff inside. You could turn it into a craft activity if you let them paint the cans. Once dry, let them shake them to the Brazilian music that is wafting through your house!
Photos of the country make great decorations for a party: You can print out photos to hang around. They can also double as education tools--Make them into a matching game. Print out a description, too, so they have to match the photo with a description. Or check out books from the library and let them do research to find out the name of the place. Make it a game to see who can accurately label the most pictures. Give prizes as additional motivation. When the party is over make the photos into a calendar-- print out monthly calendar pages, and use a photo to decorate each month.
There are a number of different sites that have interesting photos of Brazil, both it’s beautiful scenery, and it’s famous places.
This page off of the Brazil My Country website has all kinds of interesting photos about Rio. To make it more interactive, you can look at these before you watch the olympics. You can point them out when scenes show up during the olympics or news. Or, if you watch the Disney movie, RIo, see if there are any of them in the movie.
Another activity would be to print out a map of Brazil, and put it on the wall. Then have your kids figure out where these places are--fasten the photo to the wall, and tape a string from the photo to it’s place on the map. (Fun tack or Sticky tack are two products that are safe for fastening things to painted walls.)
This is definitely the most interesting map of Brazil that I have seen! It is fun just to study it as is. This photo is just one of the 5 pictures of regions shown on this website. Each region depicts the geography, famous places, and crops and goods produced in that area. You can print them all out, cut them out, and use them as a puzzle to put together Brazil by region. You can make it into an eye-spy activity and give them things to look for in that region with a check list of some of the sights (number the pictures on the map for easy identification.) Or, use photos downloaded from the internet, and give each child a region. Then make it a game to see who can collect all the pictures from their region. Another option would be to make their own map by cutting out pictures and gluing them to a blank map.
You can make flags as a craft. Give each child a sheet of green paper for the background, then cut out a yellow diamond and blue circle to glue on top. (Make these ahead of time to make a quicker craft.) Give them white sticker stars to put on the blue circle in the constellation formations. To make it more educational, read aloud an explanation of the flag while they are making the flags. Left over scraps of paper can be cut into triangles for decorations (see photo above, and instructions in the left column.) If you make these at the beginning of the party, the kids can make the decorations and help put them up.
Flags of the country make a good decoration for the party. You can print out a bunch of flags, punch holes in the top two corners and string them on a string and hang around the room. Use the colors of the flag to choose paper plates, cups, and napkins. You could even use a green sheet of paper for a placemat, yellow napkin folded in a diamond, and a blue plate on top of that, so each place setting would turn into a flag!
For more decorations inspired by the flag, cut green, yellow, and blue paper into triangles, punch holes on two corners, and put string through the holes and drape them around the room to make the room look festive.
Photos help them learn about Brazil with their eyes, but make it into an activity to make sure they pay attention
Sports and games are active ways for kids to enjoy experiencing another culture.
Flags for Decorations and Activities
This will feel more like a school activity, but may be a cheaper option--print out one per child and let them color in the flag. Coloring large areas can be rather tedious, so you could make it more interesting by reading aloud while the kids are coloring. One option might be to read about what life is like in Brazil--get a book out of the library, or look up information on line.
Printable flag: www.crayola.com
Brazilians are CRAZY about soccer. If your kids are too, invite enough kids to do a soccer match in your back yard, or to play video game soccer matches. If they are not so crazy about soccer, you can still make it into a fun table-top game by using a pom-pom for a ball ( or ping-pong ball ) with empty boxes as goals. Blow the ball with plastic drinking straws. Pair up for matches, then let winners play winners and losers play losers for a full blown tournament.
Capeoira is a sport you may have never heard of. It is a Brazilian martial art that has a musical rhythm to it. It looks like they are fighting, but they never touch each other. See videos of it at this website:
Interesting Facts: The trick to making facts interesting, is to make them into an activity or game!
Brazil has 90 different kinds of primates including the cute little guys in this photo!! “Go Weird Facts” has two pages with 16 fun facts, most with accompanying photos. Print out the photos and facts, cut them apart, and see if your kids can match them.
The “Easy Science for Kids” site has information about Brazil, including an interesting 3 minute video. That is short enough for even the wiggliest kid’s attention span!
National Geographic for Kids UK was the best website about Brazil for kids...way better than the American National Geographic for Kids.
Festivals and Holidays can be really fun ways to learn about other countries. This website has a description of a lot of holidays and festivals, so if you put in some effort, you could probably make one of these into a fun activity.
Brazil is teaming with animals, so making an activity with pictures of animals is a great way to get kids interested in Brazil. What kid wouldn’t be fascinated by the “glass frog” ; it’s skin is transparent so you can see it’s heart and intestines!! If you Google search images for Brazil, animals, and you will come up with multiple categories, such as rainforest, . Download photos and make a sheet of photos of animals. Print out 2 each, cut the pictures apart, and play a matching game, or concentration (cards are face down, and turn two over, keep if they are a match) or make them into a bingo game. For games that are more educational, kids can sort photos by habitat (which region of Brazil they live in), or by scientific categories (mammal, bird, amphibian, etc) or by food chain--what eats what, or simply sort into categories for what they eat: carnivores, herbivores, and omnivores.
If your kids like coloring pages, there are lots of options available. You can go to these websites, or simply google brazil coloring pages.
Girls love fashion, so clothing might be a good way to spark interest in Brazil. This site has a short history of clothing in Brazil. As you can see, some of the pictures are drawings and some are photos, with a short explanation. Warning: the last photo is of 3 carnival dancers, so you may want to avoid that if you are doing this activity with boys.
Family Fun > Brazil Themed Party