martes, 17 de marzo de 2015

Saint Patrick's Day V - School celebration

Many of the students did not know in depth this cultural and religious celebration held on March 17th in the Republic of Ireland, so it has been interesting to take advantage of this date to perform some research together and understand how it is.


I have been working with two classes of 6th grade, with twenty-eight students each one. In each of them, some previous work is done to know the knowledge of the students. Once the brainstorming is done, the ideas are grouped in three groups: "Saint Patrick's life", "Saint Patrick's Day" and "Irish symbols and culture".


The first day of teamwork starts with an activity in which they discover how the Gaelic names are, becoming familiar with them and learning the Gaelic pronunciation. Every student chooses the name he/she likes most from The Little Book of Celtic Names, written by Loreto Todd and published by O'Brien. Once the names are chosen, each student writes it in a piece of paper and he/she decorates it as he/she likes and finally it is glued on the class entry, thus beginning the theming of St. Patrick's Day. Students take the names chosen as theirs new Irish identity until the close of the thematic days of the festivities of St. Patrick's Day.


Six meetings are required to collect the information, to pool it with the peers in each group and to create a poster about the worked topic. Parallel to these activities, in the English workshop class, the specific vocabulary is studied. This vocabulary is related to Saint Patrick, the festival and the Irish culture.

The last session is on Thursday, March 17th, Saint Patrick's Day. That day the students finish their posters and, in groups, they are exposed to the rest of the class, and the students explain the new things that they have discovered about Saint Patrick, the events which are organized in Ireland and all around the world each 17th March, and the most important things about the Irish folklore and culture.











Once the exhibitions are finished, a new activity starts. This activity is related with the "leprechauns". Each student gets a piece of paper with the following message "If I were a leprechaun I would...", and they have to complete the sentence using their imagination and the knowledge that they have acquired about these magical creatures.


Finally, everybody celebrates a themed Saint Patrick's Day party. The students bring green coloured food and they paint their faces with shamrocks. Using the Holy Trinity meaning of the shamrock, the school friar comes to the class to confess the students’ sins.


By the other hand, I also have been worked Saint Patrick's day with my other students in the private lessons and in the extracurricular activities at CEIP José Iturzaeta, CEIP La Escuela and in Pequeneques Store, all of them in Rivas Vaciamadrid.








Saint Patrick's Day IV - Shamrock

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