Two years ago, I celebrated the Epiphany at my school in England and it was a huge success. This year together with the French teacher at my school in Germany, we decided to celebrate the Epiphany. We only have 45 students in the middle school which are grade 6, 7 and 8 (11 to 14 years old) and they either study French or Spanish as their third language. English is the first language because it is an international language and then German is usually the second language because most of our students are German. Therefore they study German literature and grammar. That is why we decided to have all our middle school students to be gathered on the afternoon of the 6th of January to experience the celebration of the Epiphany. In both France and Spain, this feast is important.In France, people eat the galette des Rois or king cake with a trinket (usually a porcelain figurine) hidden inside. The person who gets the piece of cake with the trinket becomes "king" for a day. In Spain, Epiphany day is called El Día de los Reyes(The Day of the Kings). This is the day when children get presents from the Three Wise Men (not from Santa) and when the roscón de reyes, a traditional oval pastry is eaten.
I went to France by car over the holidays and I was able to buy 6 kingy cakes there and to bring them back to school. We decided to have our 45 students put into six groups of 7 to 8 people around a table. First we had a competition between the six groups. The had to look at a slideshow (included in this post) and to decide if each statement was true or false. Each statement was written both in French and Spanish since the groups had both French and Spanish learners. All the statements were true and the group which had the most correct answers won little prizes. We then proceeded to eating the kingy cakes but we wanted our students to experience it the French way: the youngest person in the group had to hide under the table and say who was going to have which piece of cake. Our students ate their pieces of cake but unfortunately no one got the trinket! The only piece of cake which was left on the plate had it! We wanted to have a final competition between the kings and queens of each group to decide who was the king of kings or the queen of queens of the day but we couldn't and we didn't have enough time left!
On the whole, this was a fun experience for our pupils who were able to learn more about other cultures and also to practice their French and Spanish language. They were also able to compare both languages and to look at the differences and similarities between both.
What about you? Did you celebrate the Epiphany? How?
