Shrove Tuesday
Shrove Tuesday is the Christian celebration which precedes Ash Wednesday; which in turn marks the beginning of Lent.
Traditionally Lent was a six-week-long fasting event, where people would abstain from eating certain foods. This period of fasting would last for forty days and forty nights, akin to how Jesus spent that same time in the desert resisting temptation, and this period of Lent would run all the way up to Easter.
Nowadays, the celebration of Shrove Tuesday is known more commonly as Pancake Tuesday and is known for the pancakes which are made by households all around the world.
The reasoning behind making pancakes is that during Lent, people would typically give up using certain ingredients that they had in their household- these were eggs, milk and flour. So rather than throwing them out, they would use them all up before Lent began.
BBC Newsround has a fantastic page on their website which can be found right here. They have every piece of information that you could need to teach about Shrove Tuesday. What it is, why pancakes, what is Lent, and so much more.
Cooking Show
The tried and tested activity on Shrove Tuesday is to make time for the children to make their own pancakes by just following a recipe. And that’s about it!
I feel like there is some very untapped potential when it comes to making usage of this day. Try and take this format and make it something new and exciting!
Who can make the batter in the fastest time? What is the favourite topping of the class?-make a tally chart (for the younger ones, use this as an opportunity to teach about different types of charts), guess who’s pancake is who’s? The opportunities are literally endless!
Let us know in the comments below what ideas and activities you came up with.
Art and Crafts
Shoebox Cooker
I found this amazing little creation here. Take a look as they have some pretty creative ideas for activities for most age groups.
It only took a few minutes to make this little cooker, just a shoebox, 2 old CDs (tinfoil would work just as well), 2 milk bottle tops for knobs and a paper clock all held together with 3 split pins and some sticky tape. If you’ve got a bigger box you could easily cut a door out of the front for an oven space too.
Paper Chef’s Hat
Take a look here for instructions for how to make a paper chef’s hat.
Everyone in the class can have a go at making their own, and wear them whilst cooking
It’s pretty simple and can be completed by most ages. It’s so simple in fact that this is all the things you’ll need:
- An A4 sheet of paper
- Tissue paper (check your old shoeboxes, they might still have some stuffed in there)
- Scissors
- Glue sticks
- Stapler
Make sure to share in the comments below all of your creative ideas and activities that you have come up for you and your class to do during Shrove Tuesday.
Resources
We here at Teacher’s Pet have been hard at work to bring you some brand new and amazing resources all to do with teaching about Shrove Tuesday in your classroom. Click here to see all of our brand new Shrove Tuesday Resources.
Below I have picked out a handful of resources in order to get started.
We hope these ideas have given you some inspiration for how to celebrate Shrove Tuesday.
If you have any great teaching ideas for this topic, feel free to comment below and they might even get added to the topic calendar!
