Lunch and Dinner in Britain

LUNCH

What is a typical British lunch?

Many children at school and adults at work will have a 'packed lunch'. This typically consists of a sandwich, a packet of crisps, a piece of fruit and a drink. The 'packed lunch' is kept in a plastic container.

Sandwiches are also known as a 'butty' or 'sarnie' in some parts of the UK.

My favourite sandwich is prawn and mayonnaise. I also love tuna and mayonnaise and ham and pickle sandwiches.

See a sample menu of food served in pubs

Sample menu of food served for School Dinners

DINNER

The evening meal is usually called 'tea', 'dinner' or 'supper'.

What is a traditional British Dinner?

A typical British meal for dinner is "meat and two veg". We put hot brown gravy, (traditionally made from the juices of the roast meat, but more often today from a packet!) on the meat and usually the vegetables. One of the vegetables is almost always potatoes.

What is a typical British Dinner like today?

The traditional meal is rarely eaten nowadays, apart from on Sundays. A recent survey found that most people in Britain eat curry! Rice or pasta dishes are now favoured as the 'British Dinner'.

Vegetables grown in England, like potatoes, carrots, peas, cabbages and onions, are still very popular.

The Sunday Roast Dinner

Sunday lunch time is a typical time to eat the traditional Sunday Roast.

Traditionally it consists of roast meat, (cooked in the oven for about two hours), two different kinds of vegetables and potatoes with a Yorkshire pudding. The most common joints are beef, lamb or pork; chicken is also popular.

Beef is eaten with hot white horseradish sauce, pork with sweet apple sauce and lamb with green mint sauce. Gravy is poured over the meat.

Source: woodlands-junior-school-kent

Thanksgiving

Listen to the text and fill in the blanks with words from the drop-down menu.

My amazing Thanksgiving. By filling in words, you can create your own Thanksgiving story.



Listen to the song Turkey Blues and now do this exercise. (Click:Play this game)

The story of Thanksgiving Day. Click here.

Thanksgiving voyage is a gap-fill-in-exercise.






Source:
pagesperso-orange.fr
quia.com
lve.scola.ac-paris.fr
eduplace.com

The History of Halloween

Watch the video to find out about the origin of Halloween



Here is another video telling the history of Halloween in words.

Daylight Savings Time

Tonight we had to put our clocks ahead. Daylight Savings Time starts.
Daylight Savings Time is a term we use to describe a system intended to save daylight where we either turn back the clock or set it ahead one hour.
The idea was first put into practice by the German government during World War I.
Soon after, the United Kingdom followed and then US Congress made it official.
Experts say, we save a lot of energy and have more time to do our outdoor duties.
A lot of people get confused when they turn the clock back or set it ahead.
To help this there is a saying – Spring ahead, fall back, which means, in the spring we spring ahead one hour, and in autumn we fall back an hour.
Now hurry up and set your clocks ahead!

Hallowe'en

We were learning about Halloween last year. Click here and do the exercise - Easy peasy for you !!!


Halloween exercise:
Definite or Indefinite Article ("a", "an" or "the")
Now do the Halloween quiz

And once again: The haunted house



Source: KiCo4U.de

Easter

Easter is an important festival for the Christians. The week before Easter is called the Holy Week (Karwoche).
Palm Sunday is the first day of the Holy Week and celebrates Jesus’ arrival in Jerusalem riding on a donkey (Esel).
On Maunday Thursday (Gründonnerstag).
Christians remember when Jesus ate the Last Supper (Letztes Abendmahl) with his disciples (Apostel), breaking bread and drinking wine.
On Good Friday (Karfreitag), many churches hold services (Hl. Messe) thinking of Christ’s death.
Easter Sunday marks Jesus’ resurrection (Auferstehung).

For Christians, Easter eggs symbolise new life.
Easter is named after the Anglo-Saxon goddess (Göttin) of dawn (Tagesanbruch) and spring (Frühling). It falls on a Sunday between 22 March and 25 April. It is a time of fun and celebration because it is the end of winter and the end of Lent (Fastenzeit).
Children in Austria and Germany believe in the Easter Bunny.
They say it delivers (verteilen) eggs and sweets. Children have easter egg hunts (Jagd/Suche) in the garden.

The Easter Bunny Rap

Shrove Tuesday - Pancake Day

In the UK, Shrove Tuesday is also known as Pancake Day because it is the one day of the year when almost everyone eats a pancake.

The three last days before the beginning of Lent (Fastenzeit) is known als Shrovestide.
Shrove Sunday (Faschingssonntag) is the fiftieth day before Easter. Collop Monday (Rosenmontag) is named after a traditional dish (Mahlzeit) of the day.
Pancake Day/Shrove Tuesday (Faschingsdienstag) is the day on which all fat and cream (Fett und Sahne)had to be used up (aufgebraucht).


The name shrove comes from the old word shrive which means to confess (gestehen, beichten)
On Shrove Tuesday, in the Middle Ages people confessed their sins (Sünden) so that they were forgiven before the season of Lent began (Fastenzeit).

What is a pancake?
A pancake is a thin, flat (flach) cake, made of batter (Palatschinkenteig) and fried in a pan. Castersugar (Staubzucker) is sprinkled over the top and a dash (Spritzer) of fresh lemon juice added (hinzugefügt). The pancake is then rolled.

What happens on Shrove Tuesday?
There are pancake races all over the UK. You have to run and get to the finishing line (Ziellinie) first while flipping a pancake in a frying pan (Bratpfanne).

Interesting fact:
The world biggest pancake was cooked in Rochdale, near Manchester.
It was fifteen metres in diameter (Durchmesser), weighed (wog) three tons and had two million calories.

Other names for Shrove Tuesday:
Apocreas - Greece
The word means "from the meat"
Fattisdagen (Fat Tuesday) - Sweden
Mardi Gras - France
Mardi Gras means grease (Fett) or Fat Tuesday Fasnacht, Fasching - Germany

Christmas in England

In English speaking countries, children don’t get their presents on Christmas Eve
(24 December). Santa comes at night when everyone is asleep. Santa’s reindeer can fly and take him from house to house. They land on the roofs of the houses and then Santa climbs down the chimney to leave the presents under the Christmas tree.

In the morning of Christmas Day (25 December), children usually get up very early to unwrap their presents. Then they have plenty of time to play with their new toys.

Christmas dinner is served in the early afternoon. Most people eat turkey and sprouts and a Christmas pudding.

26 December is called Boxing Day. It hasn’t always been a holiday. People used to go back to work on that day where their bosses gave them little Christmas presents in small boxes. That’s why the day is called Boxing Day.

Glossary:
Christmas Eve - Heiliger Abend
reindeer - Rentier
roofs - Dächer
plenty of time - viel Zeit
is served - wird serviert
turkey - Truthahn
sprouts (eigentlich: Brussels sprouts) - Kohlsprossen

Now answer the questions by clicking here: Questions on the text

Source : ego4you

Hallowe'en

Read the text and find the correct word/expression.


Children dress up as ghosts/guests and make lamps/lambs out of pumpkins.

They put them in the windows at nine/at night.

In the evening children go out in groups and knock at/look at people's doors.

Most people give the children a treat/tree.

This is usually a sweet, some chocolate or a coffee apple/toffee apple.

If they don't get/won't ge a sweet, they play a trick on them.

They sometimes put leaves/thieves, grass/brass or bones/stones in the letterbox/litterbox.

At Halloween parties pupils/people often play games.

Halloween goes back to the time when the Celts/kids lived in England.





Key:
ghosts, lamps, at night, knock at, treat, toffee apple, don't get, leaves, grass, stones, letterbox, people, Celts


Do you know...?
......what we call a lamb's mum? ......what "at noon" is in German? ......who brought coffee to Austria? ......another expression for "won't"? ......which things you put in a litterbox? ......what "peoples" is in German? ......a Celtic museum not far from where we live?

If you know the answers, send me an email. You might get a treat !

Midsummer

Midsummer is the magical time when the days are longest and the nights are shortest. This was when ancient peoples gathered to celebrate the sun.

June 21st is the longest day of the year. We call it summer solstice. December 21st is the shortest day of the year. We call it winter solstice.
On these days the sun seems to stand still in the sky for a few days. The word solstice comes from the Latin for sun + stand still – sol + stice.

In Australia the longest day is in December and the shortest day is in June.

We live in the northern hemisphere (north of the equator), and the Earth is tilted towards the sun in the summer and away from the sun in the winter.

Australia is in the southern hemisphere (south of the equator) and the earth is tilted towards the sun in the winter and away from the sun in the summer.

In Australia winter starts on June 21st. Strange, isn’t it?
Therefore they celebrate Christmas at the beach! <--- click here

People all over the world have held solstice celebrations for thousands of years.

For our ancestors, the seasons and the weather played a central role in their lives.

We still celebrate summer solstice with singing, dancing and bonfires.

In Stonehenge, England, people meet and celebrate summer solstice. You can see pictures here.

Vocabulary:

midsummer - Hochsommer, Mitte des Sommers
magical - magisch
ancient peoples - altertümliche Völker
to gather, gathered - versammeln, versammelten
to celebrate - feiern
summer solstice - Sommersonnenwende
winter solstice - Wintersonnenwende

from the Latin - aus dem Lateinischen
northern hemisphere - nördliche Halbkugel
southern hemisphere - südliche Halbkugel

ancestors - Vorfahren

a central role - eine wichtige Rolle
tilted - gekippt, geneigt, schräg, schief
towards - gegen, in Richtung
therefore - deshalb
bonfire - Feuer, Lagerfeuer, Freudenfeuer

Can you do this quiz on summer soltice?

But it is REALLY DIFFICULT !

Mother's Day

Key:
must not - need not (Exercises: 3rd Test)

1 must not
2 must not
3 need not
4 need not
5 must not
6 must not
7 must not
8 need not
9 need not
10 must not
11 need not
12 must not
13 must not
14 must not
15 need not







A yummy and easy recipe for Mother's Day:
Strawberry Smoothie













1 1/2 cups frozen strawberries
1 sliced frozen ripe banana
1 cup apple juice
Put strawberries, banana and apple juice into a blender.


Optional:
Add 1 teaspoon vanilla ice cream.
Blend and pour into a glass.
Serve.

Words:
frozen - gefroren
sliced - in Scheiben geschnitten
blender - Mixer
to serve - servieren
optional - wahlweise, auf Wunsch
to blend - mixen
to pour - schütten, leeren
to serve - servieren


Source:
DLTK

May 1st

Exercises for the 2nd Test - Key:

Tenses:

1 is going to snow

2 we are doing

3 were, was

4 are going to spend

5 will shine

6 did Joe go, wanted, was not

7 broke, stole, were not, were

8 eats, is eating

9 When does Sally normally get up

11 I am going to go

11 lived, went, worked

Key:
Personal Possessive Pronouns
1 my / me / it
2 Her /her
3 their /them
4 our / us


Question Words:
1 Who
2 How
3 Where
4 When
5 How
6 Who
7 How
8 What






On May 1st all over Austria young man put up a tree in the centre of the village. This custom is called “Maibaumaufstellen”.
This is an old tradition.
You need a beautiful tree that is 30 to 40 metres high.
The tree is chopped early in the morning on April 30th.
Then the young men take off the bark and the branches. This chases away the evil spirits and the witches.
Legend has it that these evil spirits and witches hide under the bark as beetles.
Later the men decorate the tree. On top of the tree there are green branches. There the Germanic gods live.
The wreath stands for he female element, the trunk stands fort he male element.
In the night the men have to watch over the tree. They have to be careful that nobody steals or damages the tree.







Vocabulary:

to put up - aufstellen
custom - Brauch
chop - fällen
bark - Rinde
branches - Äste
to chase away - vertreiben
evil spirtis - böse Geister
witch - Hexe
legend has it - die Legende besagt
to hide - verstecken
beetle - Käfer
to decorate - schmücken
wreath - Kranz
femaile - weiblich
male - männlich
trunk - Stamm
to watch over - bewachen
to steal - stehlen
to damage - beschädigen



Questions:

On which day do people put up the "Maibaum"?

What sort of things are there on the wreath?

Is there a "Maibaum" in your village?

Why is May 1st a holiday in Austria?