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...

Catching Up on the Week

 




















On Monday we enjoyed a sweet Valentines Day with a heart shaped pizza from Papa Murphy's and some cupcakes and chocolate chip cheesecake that I made while the girls were at school. And if it looks like I burned our take n' bake pizza a little ~ I did. It was a little more brown than the girls would have liked but it tasted perfect, they ate it all up.


 On Wednesday the girls cracked me up when I looked over at them to see all three crunched up on one tiny little cushion of the couch. It's a sectional so they had a few feet to work with in either direction, yet they insisted on sharing the same space. I loved it!!


 




















Thursday I went on a field trip to see a First Steps performance of The Little Engine That Could with Rebekah's class. Here she is sitting on the bus with her friend Giselle, and then at the start of the show. She and all her classmates loved the cute play!


Today rolled around and school was called off. To make a long story short...over 600 teachers in our district called in sick as a protest to positions being eliminated and benefits being cut. Although I have an opinion, I prefer not to go into a drawn out explanation, so I will just leave it at our girls LOVE their school! As parents, Dave and I could not be more happy with the unique educational opportunity they have. They speak and read a language they've never learned at home because of the great teachers there. We are both active parent volunteers at the girls' school because we believe strongly in the amazing quality of the program there. We hope to be back in school very soon!
 Today at school was supposed to be an event called Fasching. It's a traditional German festival meant to "scare the Winter away." The kids dress up as bugs or animals that return in the Spring and parade around the school being loud and signing songs in the hope that all the snow will melt and Spring will be ushered in. We made our own Fasching at home.


 I posted about previous Faschings here and here . I hope they will re-schedule the one at school because the 5th graders have an important role, as I mentioned in one of the fasching post that I linked to above, it's almost like a right of passage for them. Alyssa would be so disappointed to miss out on it, but the girls had the idea to have our own and they enjoyed dressing up as a peacock, a butterfly, and a lady bug!


 Emma stayed out for one extra lap around the cul de sac singing her heart out about schmetterling(butterflies).

Tonight we are heading to the opening night performance of "U BUG ME!" at First Stage Children's Theater. I think it will be funny.