Wednesday 10 August 2016

August Meeting - Switzerland

                                            Image result for swiss flag


It feels so good to be back at the International Children's Group!


The Spies Family had a lovely long holiday travelling around the world and seeing families back home. It's great to see the kids enjoying new countries, learning traditional customs and enjoying a wide variety of food in our travels. I'm sure the International Group contributed a great deal to their experience to be the best!

We're now back and happy to organise another meeting to our members. On the 1st of August was Switzerland National Day, so what a great opportunity for Brigitte and her family to share a bit of their country with us! It was a great talk where we all learned a lot and the children kept motivated throughout the meeting with interesting facts in Swiss History, a beautiful show of images of Switzerland, Geography Games and wonderful traditional Swiss food!

We started the meeting with our "Ball Game" where the children had the opportunity to introduce themselves in their native language. It's such a fun way to start our meetings!


Then Brigitte, Nico and Marco started their presentation about Switzerland. I think we all want to go now on a skiing holiday to the beautiful mountains in Switzerland. What a beautiful country!






After the presentation we separated the children in two groups and started our new Flag Game where one group needs not only to match the country with the flag but also give the other team a few clues about that country. We used language, continent, most played sport and other facts from the country's culture to make the children think about the questions. They all did great!








The highlight of our meeting was of course the delicious Cheese Fondue prepared by Brigitte. 

Fondue (/ˈfɒndj/ or /ˈfɒnd/;[1] French pronunciation: ​[fɔ̃dy]) is a Swiss dish of melted cheese served in a communal pot (caquelon or fondue pot) over a chafing stand (réchaud) heated with a candle or spirit lamp, and eaten by dipping bread into the cheese using long-stemmed forks. It was promoted as a Swiss national dish by the Swiss Cheese Union (Schweizerische Käseunion) in the 1930s, and was popularized in North America in the 1960s.

Since the 1950s, the name "fondue" has been generalized to other dishes in which a food is dipped into a communal pot of liquid kept hot in a fondue pot: chocolate fondue, in which pieces of fruit or pastry are dipped into a melted chocolate mixture, and fondue bourguignonne, in which pieces of meat are cooked in hot oil or broth.








We also had a variety of homemade breads, cheeses and of course chocolate to go with it. So very YUMMY!! Thank to everyone who came and made this day super especial!