La Fête des Rois
Epiphany is an important celebration in many European countries and
so I decided to share this with my French classes today (our first French
lesson of the year).
With Year 3 I shared the traditional song “J’aime la galette” and
with Year 5 I shared the well-known story “Roule Galette” (if you don’t know it
it’s just like the Gingerbread Man). With both year groups I told the children
about La Fête des Rois in France and then everyone got to try a piece of the
galette I had made.
I’m sharing the details of what I did as it might be useful to
someone who has thought about covering this celebration but hasn’t yet. It is
definitely not too late as, apparently, in many countries, the celebrations go
on until the start of Lent!
Here is a link to the song “J’aime la galette”. Year 3 picked
it up so quickly. I found the best way was for me to sing a line and for them
to echo it. There are only 4 lines of words. We then sang the “tralala” bit
together. This was just enough in a 30 minute lesson in addition to the
explanation of La Fête des Rois, the galette and the fève and then the cutting
and serving of the galette at the end.
I also wished the children Bonne Année and wrote this on the board.
One child noticed the acute accent on Année and we compared this to the word
café, which they already knew. I pointed out that, although it means Happy New
Year, there are obviously only 2 words instead of 3 so it can’t mean that
exactly. This was an opportunity to point out that things don’t always
translate word for word and are said a bit differently another language. I explained
that it literally means “good year” and we compared this to other expressions
with “bon /bonne” such as “bonjour” and “bon anniversaire”. Once they knew that
“bon” meant good I told them they could use it to describe the galette at the
end of the lesson “c’est bon”.
I had made one galette per class (6 in total). I found a nut-free
version on a French website and there is a link to it here. I explained to the
children that it would traditionally be made with frangipane (containing
almonds) but they were thrilled to discover that their version was made with chocolate
instead! It was actually very simple to make. I used Jus-Roll puff pastry and
used a dish as a template to cut each sheet into a circle. (I found a dish that
was the same diameter as the width of each rectangular sheet). The chocolate
filling is then fairly simple to make (melted butter, melted chocolate, sugar
and eggs). Spreading it was trickier! I found that it was better to make the
filling first and let it cool down and thicken while I did the pastry
(otherwise it was too runny). Even so, I need to use a flan dish rather than a
baking sheet.
As for the fève…. I hadn’t been able to buy any proper ones in time
so I used a traditional dried bean. This was very small and wouldn’t be a
choking hazard and would also be edible if accidentally swallowed. Having done
this now with 6 classes I have to say it was only semi-successful. Only 2
classes found the fève. I suspect that it had started to cook and soften a
little and was too hard to spot in the other galettes. I’ll use porcelain
figures next year. Alternatively, you could use a jelly bean but remember to
insert it after cooking the galette, not before (as I stupidly did with my
first attempt!!).
The story I shared with Year 5 was “Roule Galette”. It is a
traditional tale, which we compared to The Gingerbread Man. A few children
remembered the story as it had been read to them in Year 3 or 4 (it is part of
the Catherine Cheater scheme of work for Y3). However, I wanted them to
participate in the telling of the story. First of all I took the song that the
galette sings in the story and gave a different line of the song to different
groups of children. There were 5 groups and the lines were as follows…
Group 1 “Je suis la galette, la galette”
Group 2 “Je suis faite avec le blé…”
Group 3 “…ramassé dans le grenier”
Group 4 “On m’a mise a refroidir”
Group 5 “mais, j’ai mieux aimé courir.”
Some lines are harder than others so I differentiated it where
possible. We also added actions. The actions we did were…
Je suis = point to yourself
la galette = draw circle in air
le blé = hold up imaginary piece of wheat
ramassé = mime gathering with your arms
le grenier = hands over your head in a roof shape
refroidir = shiver and rub arms
mais = wave index finger in air (one sharp movement as if saying
no)
courir = running action
The last line of the song we all said together “Attrape-moi, sit u peux”
but we said it with attitude (as one boy described as a ‘nah nah ne nah nah’
voice) as I thought the galette was portrayed in the story in that manner.
Once we had practised saying these various lines, with me ‘conducting’
the groups, it was time to read the story. I read it aloud, cutting out little
bits here and there and translating occasionally so they followed it. I got the
children to guess as many words as possible, such as ‘forêt’ and it was
surprising how many words they knew from other contexts. Each time the galette
met a different animal I read it out but didn’t show the picture and then got
the children to tell me which animal it was. They remembered ‘lapin’ and ‘renard’
from our woodland animals theme last term.
One of the great things about this story is that it is very
repetitive and each time the galette meets an animal he sings his song, at
which point I got the children to say their lines and do their actions in their
groups. This broke it up nicely so that they didn’t have to listen for too long
before they were doing something. By the time we reached the end they knew the
song / rhyme pretty well.
There are many things you can pick out of this story. For example,
I pointed out that the fox managed to trick the galette by using flattery and that
that happens quite often in stories. We then compared it to some of Aesop’s
Fables such as the Fox and the Crow.
The funniest part (or the “ewww” moment, depending on your point of
view) is at the beginning of the story when the little old woman has no flour.
The little old man sends her up to the attic to sweep the floor and find some
grains of wheat to make into flour…which she does! I was quick to reassure the children that I
had not used that method to make the galette they were about to try!!
I would definitely recommend this story. I would also recommend the
nut-free galette recipe I used. Out of 166 children only 4 didn’t like it!
Success!
My funniest moment of the day was in my first Year 5 lesson this
morning when I had just told the children that I had made them a cake. One boy
put up his hand and asked, “Madame Prince, is it edible?” J
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