Ecole JEHAN FROISSART

On our last day before the half-term holidays we went to Valenciennes Townhall to learn something from the elderly people. It was during the special week called "Semaine Bleue" in France, a week with special activities for elderly people.

PLAYING OLD GAMES !

by Natalia, Shunta and Ryutaro

We did different old games in the townhall.

  a type of bowling : it was made with wood, the ball had its own slide !

  the “frog game” : we had to throw tokens into holes or in a frog.

  a game with numbers from 1 to 12 : you had to throw two dice and if you got for example a 6 and a 5 you had to put down the number 11 but if the number 11 was already down you had to put down the 6 or the 5... The aim of the game was to get less points left than the other player.

  another game where you had to throw big tokens in something that seemed like doors with different numbers giving you points : this time you had to have more points than your opponent.

  a game with sticks : you have to take a maximum of three at a time and, at the end, if you want to win, you must leave a maximum of three sticks for your opponent. He then has to take all of them and he looses.

IN THE OLD TYPE CAFE CALLED "ESTAMINET"

by Ayami and Kyoka

Inside the Townhall, it was like an old cafeteria. In the café, some people played card games, drinking water and reading newspapers.

And near the cafeteria, some people were making lace... and we knew these two ladies because they come to Ecole Froissart to teach us how to make lace during canteen time on Fridays !

In the lace making corner, the two ladies made a lace that seemed complicated ! We tried lace making with the easiest exercises !

Meanwhile some of Mme Lardenois’ pupils were making a little doll with wool. It was so cute !

Everything was interesting.

READING OR PLAYING GAMES !

by Maxime

After trying the activities downstairs we climbed up to the second floor to have nowadays indoor activities. We were split into groups.

I went to do "reading books with grandparents". We had the choice of three books. We had to read them and classify them in order of preference.

When I had finished I went to play a strange game. It was a game with mice ! There was a table with six mice squeezed in six little cardboard tubes. Six people could play. Another mouse had to be used, one at a time, to push a squeezed mouse out of his cardboard tube and you could then see a colour on his back. Of course your mouse would then stay in the tube. On the table some cubes of different colours had been displayed. You were then allowed to take the cubes with the same colour as your mouse.

If your mouse could not get the right colour cubes, then hard luck for you !!! At the end the player who had the most cubes was the winner of the game.

Afterwards we could go where we wanted. Some did potteries and some did exercises on comics.

At the end some elderly people were playing a game called WII. It is a game that needs a screen and controls. They managed quite well !

We came back to the school happily, we had had a good time !!!

AND GYMNASTICS NOW !

by Yosuke and André

Upstairs we could also do grandparents’ gymnastics convenient for elderly people. We had to take off our shoes and socks.

We walked on white lines and sponges then walked in hoops.

We stood on one leg for thirty seconds then we put an elastic band around our feet and we had to pull our legs apart.