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| St Valentin |
Valentine's Day gives us the chance to compare traditions at home and abroad. We will start by talking about what happens in the UK and then compare this with France. I got some historical facts here , as well as this picture of the village of Saint Valentin.
Next, we will listen to this rhyme, using pictures, gestures and cognates to try to work out the meaning. Depending on the time available, we could play phonic games, join in with some/all of the rhyme or wave text strips as we hear our lines.
We will then talk about the fact that in some countries - particularly the USA - Valentine's Day is the day on which friendship is celebrated too, with most children offering cards or gifts to their classmates. It is this aspect of the day which has inspired our hands-on activity. Having recently read Erzsi's blogpost, I found lots of online resources such as this butterfly. We could use this as a simple cut-colour-and-assemble activity or could use it as a writing activity where the children write the colour words once on the wings (as in the English example) or alternatively write the colour words over and over again in the appropriate colour pen to create the desired effect.
Most of the activities seemed to revolve around the idea of hearts, flowers and butterflies, as you would expect, but I was aware that boys might be reluctant to take part so I continued to search and was thrilled when I found this caped-crusader. I have adapted the template to include an extra cape with a French greeting and a heart-shaped mask with long hair. The idea is to colour and decorate the smaller cape and stick it below the perforation on the larger cape, with the glue just at the top to create a flap. We will write our personal greeting below. Here is the template: I hope you can make use of some of these ideas and are inspired to search out your own.
Today's update photos:
