Soon I will be going to the first grade in school. And I am quite excited about it. Why? I will tell you all in a short while. There has been a lot going on and so many things have happened since my last blog entry. But I need more time to write about them one by one so for now, I will talk to all of you about one of the things me and my mom did at the Kindergarten in preparation for my going to school in September. Wow, time does fly so fast....
But first, what is a Schultüte? It is an old school tradition here in Germany wherein the first grade children receive a school cone on the first day of school. "At first the practice of the school cone, which did not spread to other parts of Germany at this time, was to not give the bag to the kids directly. Marked with the students' names, they were taken to the school by parents or godparents and in a ritual, reminiscent of the Mexican piñata, hung on a metal "Schultüten-Baum" (School cone tree) from which each child had to pick their cone, without breaking them. The story told to the children goes, that there is a Schultütenbaum growing at the school, and if the fruits (the Schultüten) are ripe and big enough to pick, it's time to go to school for the first time." Originally, it is filled with sweets but as the years went by, it became filled with more practically gifts like crayons, CDs, small toys, and even clothing articles.
Some details of my school cone: the shiny pegasus horse, the flower with the lady bug, the crepe paper cover. |
Me and my Mommy. We are proud of our beautiful craft! |
And what about my Schultüte? Well, It has a horse motif since I am at the moment crazy over horses, the magical ones in peculiar. I enjoy My Little Pony and Fillys a lot so that explains the horse motif. The main figure is a pegasus horse which mommy traced on a glitter paper from a drawing and then we cut it out and glued it on the cardboard cone. Since Mommy came in a bit late, we had to hurry up so to make it more interesting, we made different colors for the wings and for the mane of my pegasus horse. Then I put in small flower details with topped them with wooden lady bug figures. We added some more shaped glitter stones to make it more attractive. My teacher then helped to put in the pink crepe paper around the wide opening of the cone: this will serve to hide the contents of the Schultüte later on. And voila! My Schultüte is finished... I wonder what surprises my parents and other relatives will put inside as gifts for my going to school. Perhaps small, cute stuff for school and sweets too. That is what I am more excited about.
Or maybe I can make a list of the things that I wish my schultüte will contain? Hmmm... What do you think shall they be? Keep a look out for my next post to find out! :)