March 2009
Newsletter number 1
Welcome to the first newsletter from the Side By Side Comenius group.
Our group includes schools from Spain, Wales, Iceland, Italy, France
and Hungary. We began our project work in September 2008 and have
enjoyed learning about the traditions and cultures of each country. This
newsletter concentrates on the work we have completed on Winter
Festivals. We’ve had great fun getting to know each other!
Teachers from each school enjoyed the first exchange visit to Venice,
Italy in November 2008. During the visit, project activities were
discussed and the logo winners were chosen. Following the visit,
teachers returned to their respective schools full of enthusiasm and
raring to go. Children were shown photographs of the exchange and
were excited to hear all about life in our Side By Side schools.
Teachers are now preparing for the second visit which is planned for
April 2009 in Iceland.
March 2009
Newsletter number 1
Our Comenius Newsletter
Contents
Hungary ………………………………………..….pages 1—4
France.. …………………………………………….pages 5—8
Spain…….……………………….…………………..pages 9—12
Iceland... …………………………………………..pages 13—16
Italy ………………...……………………………….pages 17—20
Wales………………………..……………………….pages 21-24
Comenius Logos …….…………………………page 25
Comenius Final Logo ……………………….page 26
Here are our Comenius winning
logos. Every country held a logo
design competition and the winners
were selected in Venice. We now
need to choose an overall winning
design. Which one is your favourite?
25
Hriszto Botev Általános Iskola
and
Egry úti Körzeti Óvoda
MARI LWYD
On New Year’s Eve, the Mari Lwyd (a
horse’s skull decorated with ribbons and covered
with a white canvas) travels from house to house.
The tradition is that people go around the houses tapping
on the window with the skull. The people inside would open
the door and the Mari Lwyd group would start to sing. The
family would answer with a different verse and this would
go on till the people in the house would invite the others in
for food and drink.
Here are the most important festivals we celebrate in Hungary. We also took and
collected lots of photos. (Class 6)
Calennig
The children in year 4 made ‘calennig’
apples/oranges and went around the class
rooms singing goodwill ‘penillion’ verses.
Advent
Saint-Nicolas Day, 6th December
Here is our school advent calendar:
First a competition was held among
6-10 year-old children to draw
winter pictures. The best ones were
put on the calendar. One of the
little windows
on
it
was
opened every
day.
Children
in
Hungary
polish
their best boot
and put it on the
windowsill.
Mikulás
comes
with a big sack
full of presents. He comes with his helpers.
They are the devils. (Krampuszok) In the
morning children find candies, oranges,
chocolate, walnuts in their
clean boots. Naughty children
find twigs painted gold in
Luca Day, 13th December
In old times women weren’t allowed
to work on Luca Day. Men started to
Christmas
make the “Luca Chair.” It was
finished on 24th December. There Before Christmas our parents were invited
is also a to see our Bethlehem Play.
In the old tradition, a week or a few days
b e f o r e
Christmas, carol
s i n g e r s
appeared in the
streets
to
announce
the
coming of the
saying :"You are preparing it as
festival.
Then
slowly as Luca Chair!” Men used to
groups of boys made the rounds from
take the stool to the midnight mass.
house to house, performing the nativity
They stood on it and they were able
play, carrying the Christmas manger with
to see the witches with big horns.
1
St . David is the
Patron saint of Wales
and we celebrate on
March 1st.
On St. David's Day
our school have an
Eisteddfod which is
when we all compete
against each other
in different
competitions. We all belong to
different houses called Rhiannon,
Pwyll, Pryderi, and Branwen. We have competitions like
art, stories, handwriting,
recitation and much more! At the
end of the competition we have
judges to decide which house wins.
The house with the most points win
24
Celebrating Christmas at Home
On 24th December families are
together. We decorate the Christmas
tree on the 24th December and we
look forward to Baby Jesus. He brings
presents to Hungarian children.
We open the presents together late in
the afternoon. We play with the new
toys and games for a while, and then
we have our delicious Christmas
dinner. On 25th and 26th we visit our
relatives, go to church or play with our
new toys
a n d
games.
The
most
spectacular of
the
folkf e s t i v a l s
in Hungary is
the 'busojaras' (walk of the busos,
legendary monsters) in the’Mohacs’
district. On that occasion men put on
fearsome devil masks and walk through
their village shouting and making noise
with old tins and dishes. The local
explanation of the custom is that people
once made the Turks run away wearing
awful looking monster masks.
Classroom and
decorations
Christmas
tree
In Craft and
D r a w i n g
lessons or in
workshops in
t
h
e
afternoons—
with
our
parents and teachers- we made
decorations. They were put on the
class walls, on the
windows,
in
our
Christmas trees and
in the corridors.
We also made a
little surprise
for
our
parents at the
Every year we have a Christmas fair where we
sell our calendars and other glorious goodies
e.g. cakes , lollies , books, toys, DVDs,
Christmas cards and many other
gifts. We also have a big Christmas raffle draw and
whoever gets the lucky ticket wins a marvellous
prize.
On Christmas Eve the children prepare for Father
Christmas to visit by putting a pie and milk for him
and carrots and water for the reindeers. They also
hang colourful stockings ready for Father Christmas
to fill with treats.
W h e n
Carnival
comes
in
February we
have a great
fancy dress
party.
According to our custom, school
leavers learn a special Hungarian
dance for the fancy dress party
c a l l e d
"Palotas". The
party starts
with
their
performance
every year.
2
On Christmas Day we get up really early and check
our stockings to see if Father Christmas has been.
We usually wake up our parents and open our
stockings whilst sitting on their bed. Then we rush
down the stairs, eat our breakfast and open any
presents that are under the tree.
Christmas dinner consists of sliced roast
turkey, carrots, roast potatoes, peas, broccoli,
roast parsnips, sprouts, stuffing, pigs on
horseback (sausages wrapped in bacon) and
gravy.
We then have Christmas pudding with brandy
sauce and then we have a lazy afternoon in
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Christmas food
Christmas at
Ysgol Gymraeg Caerffili,
Wales.
Lots of families eat fish soup, stuffed cabbage
and beigli for Christmas dinner. Beigli is a cake
filled
with
walnuts or
poppy seeds.
We decorate the
Christmas
tree with honey
cakes.
Winter festivals in the Kindergarten
(Edited by Class 4a.and.b and Pumukli group)
Cooperation through Christmas Activities
Busy, busy, busy at Ysgol Gymraeg Caerffili. Everybody
is practising for the school’s Christmas play. The nursery
and reception have joined to do their play which shows
how Christmas is celebrated around the world.
Lower primary classes and kindergarten groups are often come
together.
Some partner groups had lots of Christmas
and winter games together. Others prepared
a Christmas play for their parents and
grandparents. We had a great time!
How we Celebrated in our Kindergarten Groups
Most of the groups celebrated St Nicolas and Christmas
with the parents and grandparents.
They brought us home-made cakes. After singing
Christmas songs, we all ran to the Christmas tree and
opened our presents. Everybody could take home one of
the presents. All the other toys stayed in the
kindergarten group to play with.
Years 1 and 2 compared The junior department’s play
Christmas in Bethlehem was called Bethlehem.com and
with Christmas 2008.
saw the media chasing the new
number one (Baby Jesus) and
Herod trying to banish him.
We put up a beautiful
tree which is covered
with baubles, tinsel
and lights.
Why are we happy to be with our schoolfriends?
Siôn Corn (Father
Christmas) visits our
school every year.
He brings a present
to every class.
22
’We like doing exercise in the gym, because the older ones always help us. If school
children act out something, we are happy to see them.We often join in. We feel as
we were also school children. We are looking forward to
come to school once. We have already found lots of
friends.”
3
Winter holiday
If it is snowy, we skate, ski or
go sledging. We spend a lot of
time with our parents, sisters
and brothers.
Another way of preparing for Christmas
With the help of his teacher, Kristóf made an advent calendar from match boxes.
On the little boxes the days were written by Braille numbers. The boxes were
covered with bright paper. He found chocolates in the boxes every day.
He made an advent wreath. He used different crops to
decorate the wreath. The fragrance could also remind
him the coming festival.
“Our Christmas tree was full of bright lights. I could see
To launch the Comenius project we held a
European Day, The foundation phase were
stuffed with different types of food from all over
the world and enjoyed listening to music!!!
European Day was a great
success with the children having
fun making flags. They got messy
with glue and felt pens, and when
they were finished they waved
them everywhere!
the brightest lights in the tree, and I could smell the
cake from our kitchen.”
Donations
In December we collected some presents for poor and special need children in the
kindergarten. Parents, teachers and children in
each group brought in toys, clothes and books. We
sent invitations. When our special guests came, we
had a Christmas programme with songs, games and
poems. There were drinks and cakes as well. Our
guests were very happy when they received the
presents.
European Day wasn't only fun it was tasty too.
Years 5 and 6 had a gorgeous French breakfast
with a big long French stick, croissants and jam,
orange juice and listened to European music. It
was so cool and tasty!!!
Bonjour! Bon appetite!!
Flag making.
Edited
by
Kóbory Gyula Bence - 6.B (not in the
photo)
Szigeti Gréta - 6.B
Ihász Bence - 4.A
Wingli Máté - 4.B
Hercsik Rebeka - 4.B
Soltész Luca - 4.A
Osváth Kitti - 6.A
Iványi Noémi—6.B
Told Lilla - 6.A
Year 2 had a blast
making around the world
friendship chains.
4
Making badges and
learning how to say
hello in different
languages.
21
A Carneval ogni scherzo val
At Carnival, every joke is permitted
Ecole Mme René COTY
2 to 5 years old
Ecole Jean CHARCOT
8 to 11 years old
La novità di quest’anno è il progetto Comenius che
ci ha permesso di interagire con altri paesi euroeuropei. E’ stata l’occasione per noi alunni di lavorare in gruppo per produrre cartelloni, disegni,
scrivere lettere in lingua straniera; di andare in aula
informatica e visitare i blog stranieri.
Abbiamo affrontato l’argomento delle festività
invernali: Natale e Carnevale. Tutta la scuola ha
prodotto del materiale che è esposto nelle varie
sedi o che si può visitare sul blog.
E’ stato molto bello lavorare in gruppo, collaborare e divertirsi allo stesso tempo.
We painted some masks, we wrote some recipes:
galani e frittelle. We’re going to send everything to
our partners in France and Hungary.
ACTIVITIES
Alessia, 12 e Chiara,
13
These are the masks we drew and painted during our lessons. They are funny and original
masks, also with Venitian pictures.
E’ stato divertente preparare le maschere di Carnevale e alcune, tra le migliori, sono anche
state esposte ad una mostra presso il Centro Polifunzionale di Campalto.
Ten-year-old students from Primary school Pascoli
20
The children from the nursery
school are on the process of
painting Christmas trees or
colouring in their Santa.
The week prior to the
Christmas holidays the real
Santa comes to visit the
school and distributes books
and sweets.
The parents association with
the help of the town hall
organizes this visit.
5
CHRISTMAS STORIES
The true story of the crib
Some pupils from
Charcot prepare
Christmas stories
to be read to the
children
from
Coty. The little
ones listen with
attention
and
pleasure. It is a
nice experience
for everyone.
Presepe in terracotta, preparato dai
bambini, durante il laboratorio di ceramica.
Presepio, Crib or manger is a nativity scene
created and displayed in homes, churches and
small towns during the Christmas season.
This crib was made by children during the
workshop “Playing with Art”.
Epiphany
It is on the 4th, 5th or the 6th of
January. We eat une galette des
rois. It is made out of puff pastry,
and is filled with marzipan. The
youngest person hides under the
table and decides who will get which
part of the cake.The King or the Queen is the person
who finds the bean in the cake (a porcelain figurine). He
or she must wear a crown and choose somebody to be
6
This character,
"the Befana",
is a traditional
Italian figure.
The
name
derives from
the Epiphany,
when the wise
men brought
their gifts to
the baby Jesus.
During
the
night between
5 and 6 January the little old woman who
flies on a broom, slips down the chimneys
bringing presents for good children and
coal for those who behaved badly during
the year and puts the gifts in stockings
that children have hung near beds
Dopo aver visitato a Betlemme i luoghi
santi, Francesco tornato in Italia un
giorno incontrò il nobiluomo Giovanni
che gli chiese come seguire le vie del
Signore.
Il Nobiluomo, ispirato dal Santo, fece
allestire una rappresentazione della
Natività. Durante la notte di Natale del
1223 gli abitanti di Greccio che partecipavano alla celebrazione videro in
braccio a Francesco un bel bambino
addormentato. Questo miracolo venne
ricordato negli anni successivi ripetendo il rito nello stesso modo.
Questa è la vera storia del presepe.
After visiting the Holy Places at
Bethlehem, Francesco met the
nobleman Giovanni who asked him the
way to follow the Christ’s teaching.
Giovanni, inspired by the Saint, made a
representation of the Nativity.
On Christmas night in
1223 the
inhabitants of Greccio, who were
present at the celebration, saw a
beautiful baby sleeping in Francesco’s
arms .
This miracle was remembered in the
years to follow.
Classes 4 Primary School “G. Pascoli
9-year-old students
THE BEFANA COMES AT NIGHT TIME/ HER SHOES ARE FULL OF
HOLESSHE DRESSES LIKE A ROMAN / HURRAH FOR THE BEFANA!
19
Mardi-gras
CARNIVAL SENSATION 2009
This is the main theme for Carnival in Venice this year, it involves
the presence of the six senses as the protagonists of Sensation all over
the city.
Everyone will enjoy a variety of performances whose senses will be enlivened and placed in their
own particular areas.
Each “sestriere” is related to a particular “sense”: St. Mark’s square - the mind /San Polo - the
sight / Dorsoduro - the hearing /Santa Croce - the smell / Cannaregio - the taste/ Castello - the
touch
We celebrate
the carnival
at school with
all the
classes. We
eat
pancakes,
and we dress
up.
www.venezia.net/venice-italy/carnival-sensation-2009/
WHAT WE EAT AT CARNIVAL
At Carnival we usually eat galani and frittelle, typical cakes for this festivities. We dress up or
wear strange masks and we have lots of fun!
ARNEVALE
MANGI
MO LE
F
ITTELLE E I
Hand made “frittelle
alla veneziana”.
They’re delicious!!!!
GALA
I E POI
N MASCHERA ci
TRA
CORI
These are “galani” or
“crostoli”.
Children from Nursery
School are preparing
cakes with the help of
their grand-parents.
ESTIAMO E I
NDOLI
Don’t forget to visit our
fantastic blog with all
the activities, pictures,
videos:
gramscicampalto.blogspot.com
ANCIAMO
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We make a parade on the
streets of the town with a
percussion group, throwing
confettis on the passersby. At the end, we burn the
«carnival majesty».
7
The recipe for
pancakes
R.E.A.L. NEWS from Italy
This is the guided tour around the
“Istituto Comprensivo” “A. Gramsci”
Ingredients
- 6eggs
- a pinch of salt
- 500g of flour
- 200g of sugar
- 1 litre of milk
- some butter
Preparation
- In a big bowl, put the flour, the salt,
the sugar, the eggs and the milk.
- Mix them together until you get a smooth paste.
Cooking
- With the help of a paper towel, spread the butter amount the bottom
of the pan.
- Once the pan is nice and hot, pour a good amount of the pancake
mixture into the pan.
- Spread the mixture around so it covers the bottom of the pan.
- Leave it to cook a little bit, then peel off the eggs and flip the pancake
over. Then cook the other side of the pancake a little bit.
Here the eight
Comenius classes
from
the
two
schools, Coty and
Charcot, gathered
in order to give
our friends from
the
five
other
countries
the
pleasure to be
part of such a
great project.
Do you want to know something about our school?
Well, welcome to our school. We are about 550 pupils distributed
in 4 different buildings. The junior section is on the 1st floor of the
main building, we’re about 160 students, from 11 to 14, divided
into 8 classes. We go to school from Monday to Saturday, from 8
a.m. to 1 p.m. except on Tuesday when we are at school in the
afternoon, too.
We study many subjects, but our favourite subject is …...can you
guess?????...Physical Education!!! And our favourite room is the
Gym, of course…!!
Facendo un veloce sondaggio, le materie preferite dagli studenti
Students during their kayak
sono: ginnastica, artistica e musica, .meditate, gente, meditate!!!
course, a wonderful experienBeatrice e Chiara, 12
ce on the Venetian lagoon
FIRST COMENIUS VISIT IN CAMPALTO
Hello, we are Sara and Giulia, 12 years old. We are
the “receptionists” during the first visit of Comenius
partners in our school. It was a really great
experience for us. Even if, at first, we were
embarrassed because of the language, but then we
were very happy to welcome teachers from different
countries. It was an occasion to meet new people
and to speak English, of course!
Il giorno 6 novembre 2008 a scuola c’era un grande movimento e un’aria di novità.
Noi alunni eravamo preparati a quest’incontro molto importante con gli insegnanti partner stranieri con cui stiamo collaborando per il progetto Comenius. Noi due, Giulia e
Sara, alunne della classe 2^A, avevamo l’impegno di accogliere gli insegnanti partner
stranieri – provenienti dall’Irlanda, dal Galles, dall’Ungheria, dalla Francia e dalla Spagna – e di consegnare loro del materiale didattico racchiuso in una busta. Abbiamo così
avuto l’occasione di fare un’esperienza, anche se breve, di lingua straniera in situazione
reale. L’imbarazzo, la paura di sbagliare e di fare brutta figura non ci hanno impedito di
cogliere l’importanza di quest’incontro che speriamo sia il primo atto di una lunga e
interessante collaborazione tra paesi stranieri. Il gruppo degli insegnanti partner ci
sembrava molto curioso, interessato alla nostra scuola e alle attività che vi si svolgono e
noi alunni, almeno questa è la nostra impressione, orgogliosi del nostro piccolo, grande
mondo di lavoro e di studio che è la scuola.
8
17
WHAT DO WE DO
AT CHRISTMAS
Christmas
time
rskoli
Njardviku
We put students into groups so that they could
create the following text
4th level-10 years old
Spaniards, normally set up a Nativity scene
at home with little mud figures as you can
see on the Photo. We also add some sand
and straw, some moss, virgin Cork...etc. We Nativity scene
display it in our homes during
Christmas.
Children making Christmas ornaments
Christmas dinner
On December 31st, Spanish
families gather and
celebrate with a big lunch. We eat
“embutidos” like cheese, ham,
loin...and afterwards some typical
Christmas lunch. December 25th
sweets like “mantecados”,
“turrón” (a kind of nougat made of almonds..)and chocolate.At
midnight we drink champagne and eat 12 grapes.
Christmas play in
the towns theatre
Christmas ball in Njardvikurskoli
The school band played
Christmas songs
Enjoying Christmas
Cookies
Jesus born
5th graders in a
Every year , on the evening of January
5th,the famous CAVALCADES take to
the streets. They are made up of
Famous books or pictures celebrities.
The Three wise men throw sweets,
confetti and gifts into the crowds.
Decorating the
classroom
Cavalcade on the street
Geledileg jól
Mery
9
16
In December we decorate our school, listen to Christmas songs,
bake cakes, go to church, make Christmas cards and ornaments,
decorate our classroom, sing Christmas songs, we listen to
Christmas stories, enjoy Christmas dinner and more and more...
ACTIVITIES AND
DECORATIONS
e
m
i
t
s
a
m
t
s
i
r
h
C
“ We all talked about the
photos and
answered the questions……..”
We decorate
our school
Gimli
Disabled group
We drew a tree and
Christmas balls.
We also made snowmen and
nativity scenes….
We
bake
cookies
Icelandic Santa
Snowmen….
We decorated our Christmas tree
with little balls and lights. We display
it on December 20th.
Christmas tree.
We prepared some
performances in the theatre,
Christmas
carols,
and
concerts: we played the flute...
Pupils singing on the stage
10
The parents organize a
We put on a
play
in our church
There are 13 Jolasveinar, otherwise known as
'Christmas Boys'. They first appeared in the 17th
century and are the sons of two trolls, Gryla and
Leppaludi. When stories about the Jolasveinar
first appeared, they were frightening creatures
just like their parents but over the years, they
have become milder, gentler creatures. In the
earlier stories, they would arrive one at a time,
starting 13 days before Christmas. Each one
would do their best to cause minor havoc on
Christmas preparations. One would steal the food,
another would dirty the clothes, there was one
who'd steal the candles; each had their own way
to wreak havoc. Today, they leave little presents
for the children who have behaved all year. The
children leave their shoes on their window sills
and the Jolasveinarv fill their shoes with little
gifts. Any children who have been naughty get a
potato or some other reminder that good
behaviour is essential around Christmas.
Actors put on a play
in our school
Icelandic 13
15
The project has been well taken in our school community.
WE EAT ON CHRISTMAS TIME….
We begin viewing all the photos we had collected. We
chose just 3 and afterwards a group of 4 students wrote
the text.
We have focused on interaction between different
ages and between primary school
and kindergarten
3rd level. 9 years old.
Every Tuesday children from Gimli visit
Njardvikurskoli in a small group with their
teacher. When they arrive their friends in 25th grade welcome them to the library
where they read a story together. Every
Thursday children from Njardvikurskoli
visit their friends in Gimli together they
participate in all kinds of activities.
We usually eat the “Roscón de Reyes” as a dessert
on January the 6th to celebrate the arrival of the 3
Wise Men. It´s made of flour, butter, eggs, salt,
lemon, and orange Blossom water. We decorate it with
some crystallyzed fruits and surprise figures. In most The “Roscón de Reyes”
houses it´s bought in sweetshops and the one who
finds the surprise has to pay the “Roscón”, just as a fun tradition.
On December 31st, to celebrate the New year,
we usually eat the 12 grapes.
This tradition began in 1909 when many grapes
were produced and their producers invented
the legend of the lucky grapes. We eat them
when we hear the clock peals
Lucky grapes.
•
I like very much everything in
Gimli, i like to build with
forms and paint
•
To get to know new friends
•
I learn how to take care of the
young ones
•
I like to train my reading skills
•
I like how well the kinder
garden children behave, they
really know good manners
Our main Christmas feasts are on
December 24th and 31st. We eat
appetizers like prawns, ham,
sandwiches, olives, and patté de
foie-grass before the main dishes.
We drink beer, wine and other
refresments .
What do you like most about the visits?
Question asked to children in 4th and 5th
grade
Side dishes….
11
14
nd
ts a on
n
e
ar
p
rs, p to kee
e
h
c
d
a
e
it
te
nts, y is exc
e
d
stu
od
t to veryb
c
e
j
ro
. E
he p munity e:)
t
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te
id
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r
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i
e
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ng s
We he who worki
t
OUR FAVOURITE PRESENTS
Text has been written in Assembly.
5 years old students.
The 3 Wise Men
In some houses Father Christmas leaves
gifts on the night of December 24th .
In every house there are presents from
the 3 Wise Men: Melchor, the White one,
Gaspar, the blonde and Baltasar, the Black
one.They come from the Orient and come
by camel and enter our houses through the
Windows or the terrace.
“Hello from Iceland”
The 3 Wise men bring us the presents that
we ask for in our letters. Most of them are
toys and sometimes they bring us some
clothes. They also bring gifts to our
parents. They are not toys but they like
them very much.
Gifts are waiting….
Presentation on the school walls and on Culture Day in Njardvikurskoli
The 3 Wise men bring us gifts on the
night of January 6th . We can´t see
them
because we´re sleeping but we awake in
the morning and there they are!!!
We are also used to going to our relatives
houses to pick up the gifts
they have left there for us.
Gifts for the whole family
12
Gimli
Our school web page: http://www.leikskolinn.is/gimli/
and
http://www.njardvikurskoli.is/
Other usefull pages about our town and our country :
http://.simnet.is/gardarj/gardar1.htm
http://reykjanes.is/
13