Salut! Long time, no blog, it would seem. As a little update, my role in our school board's SIS project ended in June and now I'm back, teaching français! I happened to notice that an old blog post on French resources for the Carnaval de Québec that I published back in 2013 is getting more hits than usual. Makes sense, given that we are right in the middle of Carnaval season, bien sûr! It's definitely time to give it a little refresher, n'est-ce pas?

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Diana Mancuso 🍎 (@torontomom)

     

This year, our school had our own festivities in honour of the Carnaval de Québec, thanks to our student council volunteers and teacher leads. We had theme days, such as tuque day and red and white day, as well as school-wide bingo over the PA system. We also had a different staff member wear la ceinture fléchée on each of the five days and students had to write down their names on a ballot for a chance to win a prize. On the last day, we had a volunteer dress in a Bonhomme costume and take pictures in front of a Carnaval themed background I had designed.

In my grade 5 class, I showed them a YouTube video of les meilleurs moments du Carnaval 2022 and then we read a little paragraph about the Carnaval. I turned it into a texte qui disparaît activity, which I had first learned about from Richard Smith, a retired AIM French teacher. It's so much fun! The text is repeated on multiple slides but each slide has more and more words removed, with only the first letter remaining. The students really seem to enjoy the challenge of trying to recall the missing words. I then showed them the video of one of my favourite Carnaval songs - Salut, Bonhomme! Then I take out des cuillères and teach them a simple folkloric rhythm that they can use with their hands or to test out when I hand out my wooden spoons. TIP: I added both videos to the Google slidedeck to avoid any ads. Click here if you'd like a copy of the slidedeck above.

And if you own a Cricut machine, check out my Design Space page by clicking the image above. I have created three Carnaval themed projects using basic shapes and free images, which means you can make them without a subscription:

For those who do not have a Cricut machine, I have created a PDF of the Joyeux Carnaval banner, which can be printed directly on to cardstock or regular printer paper and cut out by hand.

Of course, you have to visit the official Carnaval de Québec website, which has links to their social channels for those who like to follow along from afar, including the carnavaldequebec YouTube channel where you will find a variety of video montages and highlights from over the years. The site also has a teacher's corner where you can download free levelled educational kits containing worksheets. In addition, you can order old effigies, which make great prizes. 
As always, feel free to share ideas on how you celebrate at your school by leaving a comment below.