Year 1 students of Primary School Savremena participated in winter workshops “Happy Penguins”, “How Long Does It Take for Santa to Come Our Way?” and “Where Does Snow Come From”?, with topics related to the activities preceding the New Year celebration. Learning through play, they enjoyed festive activities and found out a lot about how snowflakes are formed, dancing penguins and Santa, as well as the snow-covered paths that lead him to our country.

Magic at Savremena never stops and each story and each workshop are magic with Year 1 students there. We completed our pre-holiday journey in a fun way – come along to see how! 

The class 1-1 took part in the workshop about penguins, true winter animals. The students danced to the song Boža the Penguin; they also drew penguins and made models of them, dressed them up and made hats and scarves for them to keep the birds warm. At the end of the lesson/workshop, the students learned a new chant.  

Together with their teacher, the class 1-2 examined the evidence on Santa’s existence – the traces made of flour, left on the house floor, after he had brought the presents, his famous laughter and, finally, the presents prepared for the children who had been good throughout the year.

SAVREMENA’S YEAR 1 STUDENTS DISCOVER WHERE SANTA LIVES

The students got a chance to learn about Santa’s homeland, the village he comes from and the workshop where all the presents are made. The students could also ask about Santa’s life. They were reminded of what a long journey Santa has to make to reach every single child and what countries he travels through before he can leave presents for our students. 

After that, answering correctly the questions about the countries through which Santa travels on his way to Serbia, they revised what they had learned. The students could also recognise the flags of all these countries.

The final part of the workshop was truly interesting. The students’ task was to guess the country where a gift for a girl was lost, by reading the descriptions which prompted them to find the solution.  

The students from 1-3 tried to discover the secret of how snowflakes are made. They told stories about winter, answered riddles about the year’s coldest season, and asked questions about how snow is created. Then they watched a simple short film that clarified how snowflakes are formed. Later, the students also learned how artificial snow is produced. In the final part of the workshop, the students drew snowflakes the way they saw them, expressing their creativity. 

Children are big fans of winter pleasures. Snowball fights, sleighing, New Year’s decorations, the warm celebratory mood, sweets and smiles all around – these are surely among the first things they think of when winter is mentioned. Little wonder that many children start eagerly anticipating snow as soon as late autumn comes. 

We are sure that the winter break will bring them a lot of opportunities to immerse themselves into the magic of winter (especially if snow does its thing and turns everything into a wonderland), and these winter workshops were an ideal time for our students to learn about the phenomena typical for this time of the year, discuss anything they would like to know with their classmates and teachers, all the while looking forward to Santa dropping their presents beneath their tree.