Lynd Public School students got their passports ready, as they visited one of the stops on Friday’s Culture Fair. Students in middle school grades shared presentations, games and snacks from countries ranging from Sri Lanka to Brazil and Canada.

LYND — Flags, colored streamers, music and more helped turn classrooms at Lynd Public School into a celebration of world cultures on Friday morning. Elementary school students lined up in the halls, ready to learn about eight different countries, from Sri Lanka to the Netherlands.

“Welcome to Brazil!” Brayden Rumfelt and Hector Morales greeted visitors to their group’s stop at the Lynd School Culture Fair. The two middle school students were part of a group that decorated a classroom with cutouts of tropical birds and plants, to represent the Amazon rain forest.

Middle school students at Lynd School organized the Culture Fair for students in preschool through fifth grade. Groups of students talked about the culture, geography and food of different nations, and led younger students through games and crafts. The kids carried passport booklets, where they could collect flag stickers for each of the countries featured on the tour.

Middle school students they had been working for about a month to prepare different stops at the Culture Fair.

“We got to choose which country we wanted to do,” said J.J. Johnson.

Groups of students worked together to feature traditional clothing, snacks and games that went along with the country they were representing.

“We’re doing a paper craft,” said Olivia Hlavka. Hlavka and Johnson were part of a group of students presenting on Norway. Besides making a Scandinavian-style paper ornament, visiting students also got to sample lefse with butter and cinnamon.

Different student groups picked countries based on their interests.

“Me and Hector are big fans of soccer,” Rumfelt said. The sport is popular in Brazil, so it seemed like a good choice for their group to research.

“We like the sports,” Morales said. “And we like the culture and the music,” Rumfelt added.

Sports were also a big part of another group’s Culture Fair presentation, on Canada.

“One thing that we knew about Canada was hockey,” said Ian Adelmann. Their group built a tabletop hockey rink, and helped students build mini hockey sticks from popsicle sticks.

“And we have ketchup (flavored) chips for the food,” Bentley Harrington said.

Some of the foods featured at the fair included roti – a type of flatbread – from Sri Lanka, pretzels and bratwurst from Germany, and a dessert called pudim de leite condensado, from Brazil.

“It’s kind of like a pudding,” one student said, after sampling the dessert.

Presenting at the Culture Fair was fun, middle school students said. At the same time, “I’m kind of nervous,” Brynn Stelter said.

The Culture Fair was an annual event at Lynd School, but it got put on hold during the COVID pandemic. It was fun to bring the event back, middle school students said.

“It was a really interesting experience,” Rumfelt said.