The Teacher's Nest

I am very proud today! Class ST prepared a wonderful presentation for the whole school! They invited all the classes one by one in their classroom and they presented christmas customs from all over Europe! They had collected many things (the poppy crackers, your cards, the wheat, the badjnak, a cracker, the sotcking etc) and they explained all about the customs improvising. They also invited the guest pupils to act out the Lithuanian predictions. Everyone enjoyed it; the guest pupils were listening very attentively and enjoyed participating in the presentation and their teachers congratulated us for the organization, the group work and collaboration they saw. They showed a great interest in the customs and they said that they also learned a lot today. At the end, the kids enjoying the remaining poppy seeds crackers and the Swedish biscuits told me that they loved the project and felt very proud of their presentation that they prepared in only 3 teaching hours! I am one happy teacher today 🙂 !

The British stocking and the Serbian Badnjak on the fireplace

E is showing guest pupils the Lithuanian predictions: which one will get married?

Enjoying poppy seed crackers from Lithuania and Christmas biscuits from Sweden!

E is explaining Christmas wheat from Lithuania

George is showing guest pupils the Lithuanian predictions

Class ST has been revising our calendar in order to choose their favourite European Christmas customs for their presentation next week. They are planning to share with the rest of the school know what they have learnt during the Advent Calendar eTwinning project!

These are the instructions we got for task 20:

”Badnjak from Serbia

The badnjak is an oak log or branch brought into the house and placed on the fire on the evening of Christmas Eve.

Early in the morning, the head of each family, usually accompanied by several male relatives, chooses and cuts down a tree from which the log will be cut for their household. In the evening, the head of the family brings their badnjak into the house. If there is more than one badnjak, the thickest of them is regarded as the main one, and is brought in first. Stepping across the threshold, right foot first, the man greets his gathered family with the words “Good evening and happy Christmas Eve to you.”

Another type of the badnjak that has developed among the Serbs has mostly replaced the traditional log, whose burning is usually unfeasible in modern homes. It is a bouquet of oak twigs with their brown leaves still attached, with which the home is decorated on the Eve. This cluster is also called the badnjak, and it is usually kept in the home until next Christmas.

Your task will be to make Badnjak from paper or natural materials.”

And here is our Badnjak!

Today class ST filled in the evaluation questionnaire for the Advent Calendar project. They had to read the questions in English and choose or write the correct answer.

CLICK HERE to see the teachers’ evaluation and read what they wrote about the project.

Today we opened the envelopes we received from Slovenia, Sweden and Poland. Our partners made wonderful cards for us!The pupils were so excited to read them!They loved them! Thank you so much!

Would you like to learn more about Christmas around Europe?

Then visit our project’s website HERE

Christmas is over, yet we are still looking at our Christmas wheat growing taller each day!

The last task of our project, TASK 24 was our class teaching our European friends how to say ‘ΚΑΛΑ ΧΡΙΣΤΟΥΓΕΝΝΑ‘ !

Here is how SERBIA , SLOVENIA and POLAND said it!

Here is LITHUANIA:

Class ST taught kids around Europe how to speak Greek  through task 18 with a video. They chose the words, looked for the pictures on the internet and then recorded the pronunciation:

Here is how kids from all over Europe said the christmas words in Greek:

In SERBIA 

In POLAND

In LITHUANIA:

In Sweden they love candles. They light them especially during the dark autumn and winter days and of course at Christmas!Each of the four Advent Sundays they light one new candle on a special candleholder. Every morning at school kids light up candles while their teacher reads a story to them.

So, we were asked to make owr own candles!

Our wheat is growing and it’s beautiful!

December 9th is an important day in Sweden. Watch the TASK 9 presentation by the Swedish partners and see what they make.

Pepparkakor : a Christmas treat from Sweden

So they asked us to make Christmas biscuits and here are ours which were given to parents as a present in beautiful paper bags!

On December 13th, Sweded celebrates St Lucia from Syracuse, Italy. She arrives very early in the morning and brings hope, light and bread to every school, house and workplace. So, they asked us to sing our favourite Christmas song!

In Slovenia, as in every country, people decorate their Christmas tree on Christmas Eve.

In this video they showed us how to make angel decorations for our Christmas tree:

Task 10 was a Greek task. We asked our partners to try and sing the Greek Christmas Carols.

Although Greek is a difficult language, they tried their best!

Here are the Greek carols by LITHUANIA and POLAND

Here is how our Christmas wheat’s growth is progressing. Will it be ready for Christmas Eve?

CLICK HERE to all the recipes shared by the partners gathered in an ebook. Kourambiedes written by class ST is one of them!

Hara’s illustration for the story

‘In Poland when children wait for Christmas, parents read them Christmas stories . We would to write Christmas story with you. Children from Poland will begin, then Lithuania write continue, next Slovenia, Sweden Greece, UK, and Serbia. ‘

So all the partners are writing a new Christmas story together. Today class ST wrote their part today:

-‘Let’s get to work, then!’ said Santa. ‘Let’s go to the workshop!’ he said to Christopher and the unicorn. But when they went into the workshop they couldn’t believe their eyes! Everything was upside down, the toys were broken, the tools were gone even the Christmas tree was on the floor and all the ornaments were broken. Santa was very sad and so disappointed…’What a disaster…I won’t make it…It’s impossible to repair all these toys in time for Christmas…I am afraid it will be the first Christmas that kids from the UK, Poland, Greece, Lithuania, Serbia, Slovenia and Sweden won’t get any presents…Who could have done such a bad thing?’

-‘We will help you, Santa!’ said Christopher! ‘I will go to get some help!’

So, he jumped on the unicorn’s back and left for the tall icebergs. The next day while Santa was sitting on his armchair by the fireplace making a new list with the things- to- do he heard lots of footsteps outside. He opened the door and to his surprise there was Christopher with an army of penguins ready to get to work! Santa was so excited! They started working all day and all night long. But the next morning….

Hara is going to drew an illustration for it, too!

CLICK HERE to read the whole story!

A few days ago we received a parcel from Lithuania with a special treat: poppy seed biscuits!It is traditional for them to eat  them with poppy milk at Christmas Eve dinner.

They wrote:

”The Christmas Eve cookies are very important on Christmas Eve in Lithuania. A lot of housewifes bake them at home. If they don‘t bake at home, they necessarily buy them in the market. Christmas Eve in Lithuanian is called ,,KŪČIOS“, and these cookies is called ,,KŪČIUKAI“. You certainly find those cookies on every Christmas Eve table, without any exceptions’

Since we couldn’t find poppy seeds to make the milk, we tried them and liked them!

Thank you so much for this experience!!!