Vivonne's Euro 4 and Euro3

on Monday we listened to a complete oral presentation on Easter by Marion and Auriane

A few historical reminders
Easter was originally a pagan festival.
The ancient Saxons celebrated the return of spring with a festival commemorating their goddess of offspring and of springtime, Eastre.
The Christian missionaries who wanted to convert them decided to do so by allowing them to continue to celebrate pagan feasts, but to do so in a Christian manner. And as the pagan festival of Eastre happened  at the same time of year as the Christian observance of the Resurrection of Christ.....

A few symbols and traditions

• The Easter bunny  : it was the symbol of fertility of the goddess Eastre  
• 
• The Easter egg  : The exchange of eggs in the springtime is a very old custom .  The egg was a symbol of birth in most cultures .

·         Hot Cross Buns  are traditionally eaten hot or toasted on Good Friday ( Vendredi Saint) , with the cross standing as a symbol of The Crucifixion. Yummy and scrummy !

·         Morris Dancing can aalso be performed bu t not necessarily for Easter though…

Here is a link if you want to watch it .http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b1gPT6pTTB8

Yesterday , we listened to a nice oral presentation on New Year by Léo and Léa. They brought chocolate macarons ( yummy ) and paper hats, blowpipes , serpentines and even confettis  !

Here is a reminder of what New Year is, how and when it started .

A Bit of history 

January was established as the first the first month of the year by the Roman Calendar. It was named after the god Janus (Latin word for door). Janus has two faces which allowed him to look both backwards into the old year and forwards into the new one at the same time. He was the 'spirit of the opening'.

However, in the very earliest Roman calendars there were no months of January or February at all. The ancient Roman calendar had only ten months and the new year started the year on 1 March.

The Anglo-Saxons called the first month Wolf monath because wolves came into the villages in winter in search of food.

New Year's Eve

People welcome in the New Year on the night before. This is called New Year's Eve. In Scotland, people celebrate with a lively festival called Hogmanay. All over Britain there are parties, fireworks, singing and dancing, to ring out the old year and ring in the new. As the clock - Big Ben - strikes midnight, people link arms and sing a song called Auld Lang Syne. It reminds them of old and new friends.

The Door custom

In the old days, the New Year started with a custom called 'first footing', which was supposed to bring good luck to people for the coming year. As soon as midnight had passed and January 1st had started, people used to wait behind their doors for a dark haired person to arrive.

A New Year Superstition in the Middle Ages

The 1st of January was a n important day in medieval superstitions . A flat cake was put on one of the horns of a cow in every farmyard. The farmer and his workers would then sing a song and dance around the cow until the cake was thrown to the ground. If it fell in front of the cow that signified good luck; to fall behind indicated the opposite.

New Year is also the opportunity to take Resolutions  .

The most common being to quit smoking  and to lose weight . What about yours ? !!!!  Post your comments

Yesterday we listened to an oral presentation on Thanksgiving by Lou and Hermona.

If you want to know more about this celebration ; have a look at the video attached ( even if the quality of the sound is not very good I'm afraid):

On Monday the 18th of Ocotber we listened to François and Elias's oral presentation on Halloween. They had even cooked some delicious pumpkin muffins .

Yummy !!

Below, attached you can viewthe video of their presentation.

Besides, if you want to know more about Halloween , have a look here : http://tlc.howstuffworks.com/family/halloween.htm You have to click on the different parts ( there are 7)

A little summary if you're too lazy to do so : 

First where does the word Halloween come from : The name is actually a shortened version of "All Hallows' Even," the eve of All Hallows' Day. "Hallow" is an Old English word for "holy person," and All Hallows' Day is simply another name for All Saints' Day, the day Catholics commemorate all the saints. At some point, people began referring to All Hallows' Even as "Hallowe'en" and then simply "Halloween."  

   Many hundreds of years ago, a people called the Celts lived in Europe and on the British Isles. They had a festival called Samhain. : it celebrated the start of Winter on November 1^st and was also the first day of the year on the Celtic Calendar. As the Celts were afraid of winter they associated it with death and evil spirits . They also believed that on the night of October 31^st the spirits of the dead came out of their tombs, that’s why they made big fires and wore scary costumes to frighten the ghosts . They played games to bring good luck in the  new coming year and ate lucky food such as nuts and apples.

   In time, the Roman empire conquered the Celts . The Romans combined Samhain with a Roman festival called Pomona which celebrated the harvest  ( Pomona was the Roman Goddess of gardens and fruit trees )

Many As