To Scare the Winter Away

Every year the girls' school has a small festival called Fasching. The way we have always celebrated is by the kids making masks of springtime animals {the 4th and 5th graders sometimes choose to make scarier animals not neccesarily associated with Spring} followed by marching through the hallways all dressed up in disguise as birds, butterflies, bees etc. singing German songs. The practice has been described to the girls as a way to scare the winter away and usher in spring. As I googled information about Fasching, I found out that it is a traditional German, pre-lent festival that sounds a lot like Mardi Gras to me, although I have never once heard it compared to that at school. Today was the day to make Fasching masks in Emma's class.

Emma's classmate has a mom who has to be one of the craftiest, most creative people I know and she created some example masks for the students to follow. Barb's animal example looked a lot like a mix between a racoon and a lion, and her human mask example looked like a scary old lady. Barb is German and a lot of the materials she prepares for classroom activities come right from German traditions her family did when she was a child. I'm not sure if that is where these ideas came from, but her masks were so neat!

Emma's scary mask! While I was wondering what kind of animal she had made, Barb was so proud of how Emma's mask turned out, telling her it was such good use of the supplies and was exactly what she had in mind as she put the materials together. Okay! I guess I will leave mask making to the true visionaries.

Emma and Sydney showing off their creations. Sydney opted to follow the old lady mask example.

Photo 35 of 365, taken February 7th:

Emma and Lauryn {who made a sweet kitten mask :-)}

It was a very WINTER day outside as we worked in a warm classroom making masks to scare the Winter away. I sometimes wish it worked like that ~ when we get sick of all the snow, we put on some funny looking disguises, sing a few songs and poof! it all disappears, the grass turns green again and the flowers bloom.


A picture of Rebekeah, our sweet little Hawkeye Bee from Fasching last year. Rumor has it this parade in February 2012 was the last official Fasching parade at our school, classroom celebrations only from now on...