Brenda

Inspired Festivals: What’s in a prompt?

Invent a holiday! Explain how and why everyone should celebrate.

Usually we see prompts and we respond with our own ideas, but when I saw this festival prompt on 6th November it appealed in a different way. I stored the idea to use with my ESOL (English as a second language) class. We had been looking at Halloween and then Bonfire Night (5th November). This was the perfect timing to set the students a creative task, to design their own festivals. Lets see what festivals they came up with – we have the holidays they invented and how we should celebrate but not necessarily the why. I did also ask them to design posters, but I only had one poster submitted – which is the image shared at the bottom of the post.

Image by Kohji Asakawa from Pixabay

Enjoy the festival prompt results from my class:

Pet Day Festival

This is a full day of fun, focusing on our pets. Held in a large park with lots of space to explore and walk dogs. The Festival features a pet show, skills demonstrations by our pets and costume competitions to judge our best dressed pooch or feline.

Celebration Cake Festival

We all like cake, don’t we? Come along to the Coffee Shop to celebrate the 10th anniversary of making and serving cakes. We will be marking our day, celebrating with our customers giving away cake to complement your coffee.

National Chocolate Day Festival

This is part celebration and part exhibition, but all the activities should result in lots of fun and hopefully not too much of a sore stomach after all the chocolate,

Exhibition Space

An exhibition space filled by sweet and chocolate manufacturers displaying their products. This will be a mix of mainstream suppliers and boutique/chocolatier artisans. No doubt the exhibitors will provide free samples of their products, but there will also be some activities and competitions for the visitors to have fun and celebrate National Chocolate Day.

Festival

As well as a cafe providing chocolate based food and drink there are a couple of activities.

Have you wondered what it would be like to make your own chocolates? Come along to the Festival and you can have some messy fun making your own chocolates. Suitable for adults and children.

Why not enter the Waffle Cake Decorating Competition? Come along and decorate your own waffle cake with chocolate. Your chance to express your creativity and see, at the end of the Festival, if your cake is the prize winning entry.

ESOL CAFE

The students creating this poster didn’t give me any narrative to go with the poster. However the timings given are our class times. I guess I’ve got to do something to support this cafe idea and continue to make learning English fun for them.

Image is a drawing of a circular table with 3 chairs around it. There is a vase of flowers in the middle of the table, along with 2 notebooks, pens and mobile phones. There are balloons hanging in the air to the side of the table. The poster reads ESOL Valley; Every Tuesday 11am-1pm; [Team lvl3]
Photo by Brenda Harrison

I hope you’ve enjoyed the festivals created by my class this week. I’m really proud of them.

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36 comments

  3. What a fun assignment!
    I loved having special days with my students – like having a poetry reading with the classroom transformed into a coffee (or cocoa) shop. 😎☕

    Reply

    • Thank you – Unfortunately I’m not seeing your name – just “someone” but yes, I’m going to do some things like this throughout the year – probably before Christmas, and we will do something special for Burns Day in January. It’s l have to be tea/coffee as I don’t think I’d be allowed to serve whisky. I could go with Irn-bru though.
      You have given me another idea – to get them all to share their own cultures

      Reply

  4. Cake festival, Chocolate festival – at the same time – my physician would not be happy with me. When is the bacon festival?

    Reply

  5. your class seems keen on chocolate treats, Brenda 😁
    all so creative, proud you are for good reason too.

    “Pet day celebration..” this one I really like.

    a wonderful share 🤍

    Reply

  8. You have some very creative students, Brenda! I love all the celebrations, but the one I’d most likely attend would be the chocolate festival. Have a wonderful week ahead!

    Reply

    • Thanks Kellye. How are you doing?

      I think I might need to treat them with chocolate this week as I’m thinking of getting them to do a mock assessment.

      Reply

  10. Actually, me and my partner do have our own holiday 🙂 it lasts 3 months and we take the time to reflect on the year, the ups, downs, wonderfuls, and savor our family and each other with time and gifts.

    Reply

  12. I am starting my culture and communication unit this Monday, which ends in speech focusing on a cultural tradition or artifact. I have been looking for practice/warmup activities for the students, and this lesson is beautiful. Thanks for inspiring me.

    Reply

    • That sounds like an interesting unit. I’m glad my post inspired you. How did it work with your own class?

      Reply

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