20th March, is the vernal equinox, heralding the start of spring in the northern hemisphere. The EarthSky website explains this more fully, with everything you need to know: Vernal or spring equinox.
Here you can explore some traditional spring celebrations around the world. Maybe you could try a few out in class (the less disruptive ones, that is!)
Curriculum links
- Art & Design: Decorating eggs and other creative projects
- English/literacy: Poetry and creative writing
- Religious Education: Exploring different religious festivals
- Science: The equinox; balancing eggs...!
Eggs and fertility
Eggs feature quite a lot in spring celebrations – think of Easter eggs, for example. They’re a pretty obvious fertility symbol, fitting in very well with spring being the start of the growing season as the weather warms up. Some people say the spring equinox is the best day to balance an egg on its end; they would have us believe that the “equal gravitational pull” of the sun makes it achievable. However, this has apparently been proven to be complete nonsense. Balancing eggs is quite tricky to do – but not impossible – and can be managed on any day of the year. This film clip shows it being done: [embed]https://vimeo.com/10311509[/embed] One 'cheating' option is to sprinkle some salt under the egg before trying to balance it. Salt crystals are tiny cubes, so they can help the egg stay steady! There are many traditions of decorating eggs - take a look at this slideshow of wonderful examples from Central and Eastern Europe. You can find a range of creative egg-decorating ideas in this Guardian article. You could also try making cascarones – eggs filled with confetti that you ‘smash’ on people’s heads (so no sticky mess, just lots of paper to clear up). This is a tradition that’s wandered from China, to Italy and Spain then to Mexico and the southern USA.Out with the old, and in with the new
With spring cleaning we make a fresh, clean start inside as things start to grow outside. Hopefully the weather is warm enough for us to open a few windows and let the fresh air in to blow away any dust and cobwebs (both literally and metaphorically). The following traditions all connect loosely to this idea. [caption id="" align="alignright" width="159"] Böögg burning in Zurich by Denis De Mesmaeker on Flickr[/caption] Fire is often used to symbolically burn away traces of winter:- The Buergbrennen in Luxembourg is one ancient tradition.
- There’s also the Burning of the Böögg (a ‘bogeyman’, in the form of a snowman stuffed with fireworks) in the Swiss town of Zurich. The moment the Böögg’s head explodes marks the end of winter, and the quicker this happens, the longer and hotter the summer will be!
- A more recent 'tradition' is Burning Away the Winter Blues in Whitehorse, Yukon, Canada, begun by an education theatre company 14 years ago. This blog explains how they make an effigy of wintry blues and ceremonially burn it. What kind of winter effigy would your pupils make?