At Sotomayor High School, students are crafting handmade Fiesta medals inspired by fideo, combining culture, creativity and heart to spread joy.
SAN ANTONIO — At Sotomayor High School, Fiesta season is showing up in a creative — and distinctly local — way.
Inside an Alternative Learning Environment (ALE) classroom, students are turning a San Antonio staple into art, crafting handmade Fiesta medals designed to look like miniature boxes of vermicelli noodles, better known as fideo.
Their teacher, Gina Montemayor, said the project blends culture, creativity and comfort.
“We are just celebrating culture and all the good things about Fiesta and bringing it into our classroom,” Montemayor said.
Each medal is carefully assembled, with students gluing and decorating the small boxes to resemble traditional Fiesta keepsakes. Montemayor helps with some of the finishing touches, including hot-gluing eyelets and adding ribbon. She also spends time after school preparing materials.
“At night, I’m spray-painting little matchboxes, taking out the matches… doing all the preparations needed to be able to bring that skill into the classroom,” Montemayor said.
For student James Medelez, the details matter.
“I can make it look flat and that way it can look like the regular medals,” Medelez said.
The idea for the fideo medals was inspired by Montemayor’s mother, whom she described as a fabulous cook. But Montemayor said she found her own way to honor that tradition.
“Unfortunately, no, I did not get that skill from her,” she said. “I tried to take a different twist to it.”
That twist has become a hands-on lesson in culture, art and real-world skills. Montemayor said the fideo medal idea started during her time teaching at Warren High School and has continued to grow with her students.
“The classroom skills eventually transfer into work skills,” Montemayor said. “I can anticipate that maybe one or two of my students eventually would work at a Monarch Trophy to be able to do those kinds of skills.”
Across the classroom, the creativity continued at another table, where students worked on oversized cardboard tacos layered with colorful paper for meat, lettuce and tomatoes.
“They’re doing taco piñatas in preparation for Taco Tuesday,” Montemayor said. “We’re doing miniature taco pins also.”
Montemayor said she often builds lessons around hands-on experiences. At Christmas, students make tamale ornaments. She also plans to let students recreate some of their taco artwork with actual taco shells, beans and cheese—giving them another way to explore food, culture and creativity.
The projects also teach students about reusing materials. Montemayor said the class discussed recycling cardboard and paper, especially with the lesson falling around Earth Day.
“A lot of recycling and reusing materials, repurposing it,” she said.
The handmade medals are not meant to stay in the classroom. Students plan to give them away to teachers on campus.
Student Tyler Watson said the goal is simple.
“It brings joy to people and it makes people happy,” Watson said.
When asked how many medals the class had made, Watson smiled and summed it up: “Too many to count.”
Montemayor said the medals may be small, but they represent something much larger. She calls her students the heart and soul of the campus, and said their talents deserve to be seen.
“A lot of times they get overlooked, but their talents are very large,” Montemayor said.
For Montemayor, it is also a chance for her students to show what they can do.
“It gives me the joy to be able to go out into the community and share and say my students helped with this and made these little replicas of what I say comfort, because that’s what it is,” Montemayor said. “It’s a comfort food for many families.”
She said the students continue to surprise her.
“They really show me much more than what I do for teaching,” Montemayor said. “Nothing is really impossible with these kiddos. It’s just in how you present it to them. They definitely wow you.”
Through fideo medals, taco piñatas and plenty of Fiesta spirit, Montemayor said her students are showing the city a simple message.
“They’re able to show San Antonio that anything is possible,” she said.
