Le Carnaval d'Hiver

Celebrating Carnaval with Bonhomme!
 
French: I can develop my French vocabulary; I can explore French Canadian cultural events.

Winter Carnival (Carnaval d'Hiver) is a festival that happens every year that celebrates winter in Quebec City. Over the last couple of weeks in French class, we were working to whip up an amazing experience for the rest of the school. We split into different groups with different focuses to prepare to lead the school for Carnaval. Some groups were planning games, one group painted a Bonhomme mascot, one group wrote announcements to read to the school, and one group prepared a Google Slides presentation for the other teachers and classes. 

Making the Instructions for Human Foosball

The Making of Bonhomme

Bonhomme (bonhomme de neige means snow man in French) is the mascot of Carnaval. He wears a metis arrow sash (fleche) to honour the Indigenous people in the area. We watched a video on how to make them and it takes many hours. There are only a few people left in the world who know how to make them using the traditional technique by hand.

Human Foosball!

3-Legged Race!

Enjoying "la tire"

As a part of Carnaval, la tire (maple taffy) is something lots of people enjoy. Many students said it was the best thing in the world. In a Cabane a Sucre (sugar shack), maple syrup is harvested and boiled down into a thick paste. It is poured onto snow and rolled into a hard candy. After you lick it or bite into it, the maple syrup becomes more soft and chewy. It is SUPER sticky!

"I learned that maple taffy is the best thing in the world." ~ Seb C
"I enjoyed this experience, learning about Bonhomme and the Carnaval because I didn't just get to have fun building things and eating maple taffy, I also got to learn about Bonhomme. I learned a lot." ~ Seb K
"I enjoyed Carnaval and seeing what we were able to make and how different it was to other people's ideas for Carnaval." ~ Liam
"I liked being able to take the Carnaval and make different ideas to adapt to what we had and we could do." ~ Callie
"I liked this experience because you can do so many things with just the stuff you have." ~ Dillon
"It was really fun and I really hope all the other kids in the school who did it enjoyed it as much as we did and that they took away something about French." ~ Lillian
"I learned throughout this process that we get more cooperative and share all of our huge ideas with each other to put them into one to agree without fighting. That means we might be able to play competitive games because we can be cooperative and kind. Also, announcing in front of the school was very hard and made me anxious but I knew my pal Leo had my back." ~ Iggy
"I think doing the announcements was very hard. You practice and practice and then you finally get it right and it's spot on, but when you go to do it, your brain gets all nervous and you goof up like a million times." ~ Leo
"It was my first time ever doing an announcement. I was kind of nervous because everyone in the school can hear you. It was a big step to go on the intercom." ~ Toivo



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