AILSA CHANG, HOST:
From screwworms to soccer. As the World Cup kicks off this week, some educators outside Boston, one of the host cities, are finding ways to bring excitement over the global event into the classroom. Elementary schools in Chelsea, Massachusetts, have transformed into a hall of nations. Each classroom door is decorated with flags and jerseys of different World Cup countries. Suevon Lee from member station WBUR begins in Algeria.
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SUEVON LEE, BYLINE: Jillian Pontz's second grade classroom shows off the Algerian soccer chant.
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UNIDENTIFIED SCHOOL STUDENTS: One, two, three, viva l'Algerie. One, two, three, viva l'Algerie.
LEE: One, two, three, viva l'Algerie is the rare chant featuring three languages. Next, we travel north to Canada.
UNIDENTIFIED SCHOOL STUDENTS: Ooh, ah, Canada. Say ooh, ah, Canada. Ooh, ah, Canada. Say ooh, ah, Canada.
LEE: And finally, we head down under, where fourth graders are showing us how to root for the Socceroos.
UNIDENTIFIED SCHOOL STUDENTS: Aussie, Aussie, Aussie. Oi, oi, oi. Aussie, Aussie, Aussie. Oi, oi, oi.
RICHARD ROMANOFF: This is something they don't teach you in music teaching school.
LEE: Music teacher Richard Romanoff found the countries' chants with the help of YouTube.
ROMANOFF: I picked chants that the students would be able to do, you know, in second grade.
LEE: The three you just heard, they're some of the winners of a chant contest held throughout the Chelsea Elementary Complex. The building houses four schools under one roof serving nearly 2,000 kids. About 90% are Hispanic or Latino. And it's not just chants students are learning. Each elementary classroom earlier this year was given a different World Cup country to represent. Students have been learning about its language, food, wildlife.
BRUNO CONTRERAS: What have you learned about Algeria, like, this month? Yeah.
LEE: Bruno Contreras is director of Soccer Without Borders Massachusetts, an organization that has been partnering with Chelsea schools to make learning around the World Cup fun.
ZOE HEMPHILL: I learned that there's a lot of cool animals, like the fennec fox...
CONTRERAS: Yes.
ZOE: And cheetahs.
CONTRERAS: OK.
ZOE: And camels that you can ride on.
CONTRERAS: OK. What else?
ANTHONY SERRANO: That in the south of Algeria is the Sahara Desert, the hottest desert. And on the coast is the city Algiers.
LEE: Those are second-graders Zoe Hemphill and Anthony Serrano. Eight-year-old Anthony is a huge soccer fan. Who's he rooting for this World Cup?
ANTHONY: Portugal because I love Cristiano Ronaldo.
LEE: Contreras says the World Cup was a golden opportunity to build on his group's mission to build empathy.
CONTRERAS: We celebrate our backgrounds, our roots, our diversity.
LEE: On classroom doors, teachers have taped pictures kids have drawn of the foxes that live in Algeria, the lederhosen some might wear in Germany.
EMILY RIVERA: Belgium is known for waffles and Godiva chocolate, and they have Michelin star restaurants.
WENDY TENELEMA: One interesting fact about Ecuador is that they use U.S. dollars.
BRANDON LAURENT: There are 1,500 different species of spiders in Australia.
LEE: That's Emily Rivera, Wendy Tenelema and Brandon Laurent sharing some of their newfound knowledge.
ANITA CACEDA: OK, go ahead.
LEE: Anita Caceda says it's hard to contain her fourth-graders' excitement over the World Cup.
CACEDA: We're a really big soccer community. You can't stop these kids from playing soccer. If you look, he's even got a soccer ball under his feet (laughter).
LEE: Her classroom studied Belgium, but Caceda proudly displays the flags from all the places her students come from.
CACEDA: The majority are from Honduras and El Salvador or Guatemala, but we have many children from Colombia, Peru, Puerto Rico, Dominican Republic, Republica Dominicana.
LEE: The World Cup has also fit right into Meg Hawthorne's lessons.
MEG HAWTHORNE: Taking the opportunity to connect this to a lot of what we're learning about different parts of the world, to a lot of geography standards in fourth grade has been really cool.
LEE: There's another reason her fourth-graders are so fired up. Seven matches will be played in the Boston area.
HAWTHORNE: It's really exciting to know that they're just, you know, a hop, skip and a jump away from where it's all going to be taking place, and it makes it feel that much more real to them. So they're very excited.
LEE: How excited? Just take a stroll through the lunch room.
MALIK HOWSHAN: Hey, hey, hey.
LEE: Malik Howshan, the district's innovation officer, throws a question out.
HOWSHAN: Who's ready for the World Cup?
UNIDENTIFIED SCHOOL STUDENTS: Me.
HOWSHAN: Hey.
LEE: The first match in Boston is between Haiti and Scotland this weekend. For NPR News, I'm Suevon Lee in Chelsea, Massachusetts.
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