Valentinstag

It's refreshing to be in a country where Valentine's Day isn't such a big deal. I think the only commercial I've seen about the holiday was an advertisement for the movie Valentine's Day, which will be showing on German TV on Sunday.  Most of my fifth grade students seemed blissfully oblivious. When a student's mom (who is a fabulous baker, and, by the way, is also from Texas) brought in delicious pink cupcakes with red sprinkles this morning, some of my students asked, "Whose birthday is it?"

A few of my students knew, of course, and I did get some Valentine's Day cards. They were the best kind, too: the homemade kind. :)

some of my Valentine's Day treats...and snow, too!

11/11/11

In Germany and Austria, November 11 is St. Martin's Day (Martinstag). St. Martin was a soldier in the fourth century who, according to legend, tore his cloak in half and gave it to a beggar. On St. Martin's Day children parade through the streets with paper lanterns, singing songs about St. Martin.   



St. Martin's Day Parade in Mondsee, Austria



In my classroom, though, it was Pepero Day!  What's Pepero Day? It's relatively new holiday celebrated in South Korea.  "Pepero" is the name of a cookie stick dipped in chocolate. The sticks look like the number "1", so 11/11 is Pepero Day.

One of my students brought boxes of Pepero for the whole class. My fifth graders decided that we should continue the "11" pattern, and eat our Pepero sticks at 11:11 A.M.  When I told them it was exactly 11:11, they spontaneously started counting, and it wasn't until they reached eleven that they began eating the Pepero.

So, if anyone asks me what I was doing at 11:11 with eleven seconds on November 11, 2011, I can tell them...I was eating chocolate.