I wonder if you know who Marzanna was? Also called Marzana, Marzena, Morzena, or Marena, she was a Slavic goddess, quite unusual one. She was a dangerous goddess of death and winter. Although she was forgotten as a goddess, she has remained in the shape of hideous dummy representing winter and she is drowned in water every spring.
Marzanna drowning symbolizes the spring fight with winter. Our great ancestors wanted to help forthcoming cheerful season of the year and they made a straw dummy, believing it represents the goddess herself. Then they threw it into the river or a stream so that the swift current of water hastened leaving of winter. They even drowned Marzanna in a puddle, when there was no floating water nearby.
The ceremony of Marzanna drowning has survived, however nowadays for the sake of environment pollution, drowning of the straw dummies is dying out. There is no obstacle though, to make clumsy figures symbolizing an evil and long lasting winter. Perhaps they will help the most joyful season of the year come faster, even without being drowned.
This year, at our school pupils of the first, second, and third form were trying to make the ugliest dummy anyone could imagine. It was so much fun! Let’s see for yourself! Our Works were displayed on the lower corridor.
Photos depict second form pupils making dummies, and all the dummies made by children.
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Easter is very important in our lives. That is why every year at our school the morning devoted to Easter customs and traditions takes place. One of those customs is making speckled, painted etc. Easter eggs.
In the pictures the children from the common room are preparing and presenting big Easter eggs made of balloons for a school assembly. They look beautiful, don’t they?
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3. Schoolgirls are making embroidered Easter cards.
Another Easter custom is sending cards with wishes. Who said that they have to be bought in the shop? Look at those beautiful cards embroidered by the third form schoolgirls. It is nice to get such a unique Easter card especially when it hides sincere wishes inside.
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4. Easter decorations’ workshop.
Right before Easter we decorate our houses with different embellishments. Fifth form schoolgirls were having really great time while making decorations under the leader of the workshop supervision .
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Finally! At last we can present our Easter decorations and … try to sell them during the fair organized at school by the ladies who conduct drama classes. Everything was so beautiful! It would be great to have it all!
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6. The contest: „Spring Omnibus”
On the 6th April 2006 in John Paul II Primary School no. 5 in Krosno the contest “Spring Omnibus” took place – it was the interschool contest for first and second form pupils.
Our school was represented by two pupils: Lena Helińska (class I) and Jarek Trznadel (class IIB). The main task of the two-person team was to solve the crosswords, riddles, rebuses, to arrange the puzzle from spring flowers and to identify the birds heralding spring.
You could almost touch the emotions; every contestant managed to do the tasks and show the incredible knowledge, cleverness and reflex. It is worth to pay attention to the great organization and the incredible atmosphere.
In spite of terrible weather behind the windows: heavy rain and cold wind, the classroom where the contest was taking place was the realm of spring. The tables of each team were showing green grass, butterflies were flying, frogs and grasshoppers were jumping, and the first spring flowers were blooming. Smiling Lady Spring was walking around the tables and taking out the colourful envelopes with tasks from her basket. Silent music was heard in the background.
Everyone was truly charmed - Congratulations for the contest organizers!
Have a look at the photographs which confirm above-mentioned words.
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On the 15th May the student council organized Forget-me-not Day. That is the day when we can say something nice to a person who we like. Forget-me-not became the symbol of friendship and love. That day both pupils and teachers were asked to wear blue clothes. In the upper corridor there was a “wall of wishes”, where everyone could write nice wishes for those who they like.
In the afternoon there was a blue disco for students (classes IV – VI), and pupils who attend nature circle planted forget-me-nots and other plants in the school garden.
On the
occasion of Easter students prepared a very solemn assembly. With poems
and songs they told us about this most important Christian festival.
They also reminded us about traditional customs related to Easter.
Students decorated an Easter table as well. Besides
a little lamb there were colorful Easter eggs, chicks, bunnies and
spring flowers on the table. At the end of the event the head of school
government wished everybody Happy Easter and teachers were presented
with hand-made flowers.
9. Socrates Comenius during computing lessons.
Pupils of the fifth and sixth grade were taught how to make the weather calendar in word processor Word. They were filling in the table with weather data and Word Art and Clip Art objects. Apart from that they were searching the Net for the information about partner countries.
Sixth grade students were also trying to use the Excel spreadsheet. Obtained information was shown in the form of bar chart – thus, data concerning population, area, density in partner countries was collated. Pupils were also taught to put formulas calculating the average, minimum and maximum temperature, and also learned how to calculate temperature amplitude which was read by the younger pupils during focus weeks. They were making graphs showing temperature and they learned how to format them.
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