By: Bas, Gilles and Finn Saint Nicolas

1. Front piece 2. Entry at school 3. Surprises 4. School decorations 5. Songs 6. Pieten Content

It was a beautiful day. Everyone was pretty tense that Saint Nicolas would come. And what kind of surprise he or she would get. When everyone was inside, we went outside to wait till Saint Nicolas would come. The rest you read on the next page. Front piece

Entry at school After 3 songs Saint Nicolas entered. Everyone was happy and followed Saint Nicolas inside. After that he came to all the classes. And his Pieten (the black assistents of St. Nicholas) gave everyone gingerbread, chocolate, meringues and gingerbread dolls.

Surprises We make things for a fellow-student in our class, but that person doesn’t know about it. There is also a poem for that student. On the birthday of Saint Nicolas we open them and guess who made it. After that we tell how we made something.

School decorations All the classes in the school were decorated with schoolmade stuff. In our class we made Pieten and hang them on the roof, in years 4A and 4B they made flat Pieten and hang them on the window. In the corridor there were lots of decorations like Pieten with wiggly legs and a flat wooden shoe with a carrot in it

Songs We sing together songs at party’s or celebrations. When we celebrate Saint Nicolas we sing songs like: Oooooh, kom er eens kijken wat ik in mijn schoentje vind alles gekregen van die beste Sint. (oh, come and look what I found in my shoe, I got it from that good Saint). Or: Zie ginds komt de stoomboot uit Spanje weer aan, hij brengt ons Sint Nicolas ik zie hem al staan. (See, there comes the steamer from Spain, he is bringing us St. Nicholas). Or: Sinterklaasje kom maar binnen met je knecht. (St. Nicholas step inside with your assistent) Here’s a youtube clip of one of the songs:

Pieten The Pieten are black (people say that they are black because they climb through the chimneys to put gifts in peoples shoes) and help Saint Nicolas. They also give children sweets and gifts in the night in there shoes.