Merry Christmas and a happy New Year!
Class 6C, School no. 92, Bucharest
I nostri “lavoretti”natalizi /Our Christmas little gifts
Tradizionalmente , nella nostra scuola, gli insegnanti e gli alunni di ogni classe preparano insieme dei “lavoretti” natalizi, piccoli doni che ogni bambino porterà a casa, l’ultimo giorno di scuola prima delle vacanze natalizie, e darà ai propri genitori.
Traditionally, in our school, the teachers and the pupils of each class made together some Christmas ” little works”, little gifts that each child will bring home, in the last day before Christmas holidays, and will give their parents.
Ecco cosa è stato realizzato quest’anno / Here’s what was made this year:
Scuola Primaria “A.Ciancia” – Francavilla in Sinni(PZ) – Italia
Alberi, Presepi e Decorazioni natalizie/ Trees, Cribs and Christmas Decorations
Dai primi giorni di dicembre fino all’ultimo giorno prima delle vacanze natalizie, gli alunni di tutte le classi della nostra scuola primaria “A. Ciancia” e della scuola dell’infanzia “G. Rodari” sono stati impegnati in attività didattiche riguardanti il Natale. Insieme agli insegnanti, nelle varie classi, hanno addobbato alberi, allestito presepi, decorato le finestre, realizzato biglietti augurali e piccoli regali con le proprie mani per i loro genitori, intonato canti natalizi, preparato drammatizzazioni, imparato poesie, ricercato informazioni… il tutto per vivere tutti insieme, nel modo più consapevole e sentito, questo particolare momento dell’anno.
From the first days of December till the last day before the Christmas holidays, the pupils of all the classes of our “A. Ciancia” primary school and of the”G. Rodari” infant school were busy in didactical activities referred to Christmas. With all the teachers , in the various classrooms, they put up trees, set up cribs, decorated windows, made Christmas cards and little gifts with their own hands for their parents, sang Christmas carols, prepared dramas, learnt poems, searched information … everythings to live all together, in the most conscious and heartfelt way, this particular time of the year.
Ecco alcune foto/Here are some photos:
ll clima di preparazione al Natale non è stato vissuto dagli alunni solo a scuola ma anche nelle proprie case. Anche lì, ognuno ha preparato il proprio presepe, il proprio albero, le proprie decorazioni in attesa del grande evento. I bambini della classe 5^B hanno fotografato alcuni dei loro preparativi.
The Christmas preparation atmosphere hasn’t been lived by the pupils only at school but in own homes as well. Also there, each one prepared his own crib, his own tree, his own decorations waiting for the great event. The class 5 B children photographed some of their preparations.
Scuola Primaria “A. Ciancia” Francavilla in Sinni(PZ) – Italia
Our folk costumes December 20, 2008
A few months ago, our Romanian colleague here, Irina, from Bucharest wrote an article about our folk costumes.
They are different in each region of Romania. Here is a photo of our six graders wearing them for the Christmas party we have every year at school.
The folk costume from Bukovina (our region) is interesting from the point of view of the decoration through simplicity and sobriety, the main colours being most of the times red, black and white, although more recently other colours have been added (blue and orange, for instance).
Liliana&the kids
Our preparations for Christmas
I want to tell you about our way to spent the last days before Christmas through a kind of diary about our preparations for this festivity in this last week:
15-12- 2008
The children have made beautiful shiny (silver, gold) Christmas cards for their parents. I asked the children to think of THREE things to thank their parents for (not just material things but also those which cannot be bought with money – care, attention, love, etc.) and also ONE thing they would promise to do for their parents next year. (tidy their bedroom, look after a younger brother / sister or even a pet)
Some of our Christmas cards
Then this afternoon we were invited to the local high school to see a performance of Dick Whitington. (a pantomime, where the audience are expected to join in and sing and shout things !) It is set in the middle ages and a young, poor boy travels to London to find work. He finds love with Alice but first he has to fight off some cruel people who are selfish and intending to rob the people Dick works for. The cast sang a song from High School Musical and they even mentioned me ! “That guy in the audience with the long hair !”
A scene of a Pantomime we sawWhen we returned to school, (and after the children had gone home) we had our first proper staff rehearsal of Cinderella. It is – yet again – a pantomime. The Prince cannot find a bride and so his mother and father, the King and Queen, organise a ball (large party) for him to meet – hopefully – a beautiful lady. It all turns out happily for him in the end, the rehearsals are very funny because we are all quite hopeless as actors and giggle too much ! The show takes place Thursday morning
16 – 12 – 2008
here’s today’s instalment of Christmas preparations :
a local church have sent cards for all the children,
the violin group (for Year 3 children – aged 7,8) are preparing for a concert for parents.
The choir over the next couple of days will be visiting an old persons’ (pensioners) retirement home across the road from the school. They will sing to the residents and also will be visiting a hospital about one mile from us (nearly two kilometres) from us and will sing to one of the wards there.
A second rehearsal takes place tonight (after school) for our staff who will perform ‘Cinderella’ on Thursday morning.
17 – 12 – 2008
today’s stuff :
the kids have brought in CD’s and they will decide the music for our dance party, yes I know it sounds like TOO much fun really but at least they’re keeping fit !
Their favourites seem to be :
High School Musical
Rihanna
Pussycat Dolls
Abba
Girls Aloud
Cascada
and we have a DVD showing party dance moves which they can copy from the screen, they are :
Cha Cha Slide
The Ketchup Song
Macarena
YMCA
It’s A Tragedy
Saturday Night
Achy Breaky Heart
Then we will finish the Nativity Story covering the Anunciation from Angel gabriel, the journey to Bethlehem, staying at the inn, the shepherds visited by the angel, fleeing Herod’s men.
Tonight is the final rehearsal of the Staff Band – yes there is a band !
1 piano, 1 keyboards, 3 flutes, 3 African drums and maybe 3 or 4 singers.
18 12-2008
I’ll just tell you about tomorrow our last day of the year at school.
We start with ‘Wake Up Shake Up’, this happens every day from 8:30 – 8:50, 20 minutes exercise to music for those pupils who choose to participate. Just after 9:00 the pantomime will start, it is very silly and supposed to be funny – the audience are encouraged to shout things at the actors. Then the staff “Band” will play 5 songs which the children will join in with.
Oh Little Drummer Boy
Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas
Jingle Bells
Rudolf The Red Nosed Reindeer
Rockin’ Around The Christmas Tree
Later my class will have a little party in the class with pop, crisps, biscuits, some chocolate, this would be the ONLY day they would be allowed sweet things to eat during school time , at the end of the day they might be shown a film (or part of a film) as a treat such as Scrooge, Home Alone, Christmas with the Muppets, in other words a film with a Christmas theme.
By the way, tonight our primary school choir sing with other local primary schools at the local trinity Church. (It is Church of England)
So, I hope I have given you a flavour of what we do at Christmas.
One of our song with our Christmas tree and our Christmas cards
Phil and Class 4 -Churchfields Primary School-Chesterton, Newcastle-under-Lyme -England – UK
Our Christmas Carol for you December 19, 2008
Here’s a Romanian carol performed by our 6th graders.
Liliana&the kids
Le nostre cartoline di Natale/Our Christmas cards
Per Natale abbiamo preparato le cartoline natalizie per augurare a tutti buon Natale. /For Christmas we made Christmas cards to wish everyone merry Christmas .
Classe 5^B- Scuola Primaria “A.Ciancia”-Francavilla in Sinni (PZ)- Italia
Aspettando Natale /Waiting for Christmas December 18, 2008
Nel mese di Dicembre a scuola abbiamo lavorato e preparato tante cose per il Natale. Abbiamo imparato e cantato canti natalizi, abbiamo addobbato un albero riciclando bottiglie e bicchieri di plastica, abbiamo preparato, come lavoretto, la “scopina scacciaguai”.
La “scopina scacciaguai” è un piccola scopa che, non solo nel periodo di Natale, si tiene dietro la porta perchè, si dice, tenga lontano tutti i guai da casa.
Così, aspettando il Natale, ci siamo divertiti stando insieme in armonia.
During the month of December at school we worked and prepared a lots of things for Christmas. We learnt and sang Christmas Carols, we put up a tree recycling plastic bottles and glasses, we made, as a little work, the “little throw away troubles broom”.
The “little throw away troubles broom” is a little broom that, not only in Christmas time, is kept behind the door because, they say, it keeps away all the troubles from the home.
So, waiting for Christmas, we had fun staying together in harmony.
Un Canto natalizio ed il nostro albero di Natale /A Christmas Carol and our Christmas tree
Le nostre “scopine scacciaguai” / Our ” little throw away troubles broom”
Classe 5^A- Scuola Primaria “A Ciancia” – Francavilla in Sinni (PZ) – Italia
Winter holidays
Holidays and customs grouped around the winter solstice (from December 20 to January 7), bare the generic name of winter holidays. This time of year is open and closed by holidays prefaced by eves, such as Christmas and Epiphany, and in the middle of them there is the New Year’s Night. The major holidays of the cycle of winter – Christmas, New Year’s Day, Epiphany – have played trough the time the role of independent moments of the renewal of time and the beginning of the year. The Romanians used, besides the calendar officially recognized by the state and church, an unofficial calendar – popular calendar – created by people and passed from one generation to another through folklore. Unlike the official church calendar and civil calendar, which is a simple table of the days and weeks grouped by months, the popular calendar indicates the optimal time for ploughing and sowing, for finding a spouse or getting engaged, for the receiving the legacy from the ancestors or finding one’s destiny etc. Holidays and popular customs, which take place within a day or several days, by day or by night, on a fixed or variable date, dedicated to divinities in the calendar, to people, animals, birds, plants, terrestrial and cosmic phenomena are known and respected, in some areas, until today. Some have taken the names of Christian saints, others have no connection with Christianity ( “Caloianul, Paparuda, Dragaica” etc.). Deities from the local Dacian heritage, or assimilated and borrowed from Greek, Roman and Oriental peoples, as well as old Romanian mythical creations form an original pantheon.
Carolling is a scenario composed of ceremonial texts (carols), magic formulas, dances, gestures, interpreted in the house and the street by a group of people. In the popular calendar, it appears under different names in different times of the year: around the winter solstice ( “The Star”, “Plugusorul, Sorcova”), the spring or the autumn equinox, the summer solstice. The carols usually bring a message for the new year wishing for health, prosperity, the fulfilment of the wishes. Carolling is the most widespread tradition of the Romanians. When people close the doors to carollers or do not offer gifts, magic effects are the opposite, because they have broken the rules.
On the nights of December 23rd and 24th , from midnight until the morning, the streets of the villages sound with the carollers’ small voices. In towns, they meet from dawn till midnight.
The host offers them money or treats: pretzels, nuts, apples, buns. On Christmas Eve, and on the eve of New Year’s Day, in all the Romanian provinces, children form groups and go singing from one house to another.
There are special carols for the New Year’s Day, as well as for Palm Sunday and Easter.
There are two kinds of carols: religious and secular ones. The religious have literary origin, and their topics are related mostly to Jesus. The profane (or worldly) carols have a lyrical character, and they are often adapted by the carollers to the situation of their listeners .
Merry Christmas!
Irina and the kids from School no. 92, Bucharest
An Italian Christmas Carol!/ Un canto natalizio italiano! December 17, 2008
Con le nostre voci , un po’ stonate, intoniamo il più tradizionale dei nostri canti natalzi, “TU SCENDI DALLE STELLE”, e vi mostriamo il nostro presepe e le nostre vetrate realizzate in classe aspettando il Natale.
Buon Natale a tutti!
With our voices, a little tone-deaf, we intonate the most traditional in our Christmas Carols, “TU SCENDI DALLE STELLE”, and show you our Crib and our window displays made in the classroom waiting for Christmas.
Merry Christmas to you all!
Classe 4^A- Scuola Primaria “A. Ciancia” – Francavilla in Sinni (PZ)-Italia
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