The guitar-laden refrains of Flamenco music put smiles on the faces of both parents and their children at the end of the July 10 Passport Thursday at the Santa Maria Valley Discovery Museum.
Oriol Roche, 17, from Barcelona, Spain, taught kids about Spanish foods and words, where the country is located, and two different dances: the Sardana—a traditional Catalan dance—and the Flamenco.
Roche is staying with a host family in Lompoc while he’s on the Central Coast. It’s his second visit with them, and he is also teaching the July 17 Passport Thursday, which will be all about France.
The Discovery Museum started the weekly event during the last week of June, when India was the theme and children got henna tattoos created from face paint.
Each child gets a Little World Passport, which gets stamped after every session he or she attends. Written on the back of the passport is the adventurer’s oath, “I promise to seek adventure at every turn. It is my mission to discover new experiences, new tastes, and new friends.”
After five stamps—five sessions, five countries—the little adventurer gets a Discovery Museum surprise. Passport Thursdays are happening for the remainder of the summer, every Thursday at 11 a.m.
The sessions are free for museum members and with admission, which is $4 for adults and $8 for children.
This article appears in Jul 10-17, 2014.