Philippines Flag Art and Language Lesson

The Flag of the Philippines-

This flag is a symbol of the independence of the nation from the Spanish and has been used in the Philippines since 1898.  It is full of symbolism that shows the values of the Filipino people.  The white, equilateral triangle sumbolizes equality and fraternity among the people.  The blue stripe stands for peace, truth and justice while the red stripe symbolizes patriotism and valor.  In the center of the white triangle is an 8-rayed sun said to symbolize unity, freedom, democracy and sovereignty.  The number of rays (8) represent the 8 provinces that started the Philippine Revolution against Spain.  The 3 stars that are in each corner of the triangle are meant to represent the 3 main regions of the Philippines - Luzon, Visayas and Mindanao.  An interesting feature - when the country is at war the flag is flown upside down with the red band on the top.    What a beautiful flag for a beautiful country!  So we made our own renditions of the Philippines Flag for our art project :)

Art Project:  Philippines Flag
For the project you will need:

• white construction paper
• blue, red and yellow paints
• brushes

1.  Fold your paper in half lengthwise to determine the center.
2.  Draw triangle on right side from each corner to meet on center line. 
3.  Draw sun with 8 rays in center of triangle (or let them do it)
and a 5 pointed star in each corner of triangle.
4.  Explain what colors should go where and let 'em at it.

My daughter too it another step further and painted the flag for her own country!  She will be a great dictator one day :)












Time for a language lesson-

The people living in the Philippines speak over 500 different dialects.  Tagalog is the most commonly used, so when the government wanted to create an official language for the land they used Tagalog as the base.  The official language is called Filipino and here are a few words.  I capitalized the syllable that is stressed so that your pronunciation will be better :)

Hello/How are you? = kumuSTA     Welcome = maBUhay
Goodbye = paALam     Thank you = saLAmat
Delicious = maSArap     I love you = maHAL kiTA

one = iSA     two= daLAwa    three= tatLO     four= Apat
five= liMA    six= Anim    seven= piTO   eight= waLO
nine= siyam  sounds like "sham"   ten= samPU

and this phrase:
Salamat sa iyo para sa pagbabasa at magkaroon ng isang mahusay na araw!  Which means "Thank you for reading and have a great day!"