Every year I used to ‘celebrate’ Mardi Gras with my students. For more than 10 years we have spent the time leading up to February break learning about Mardi Gras, a little New Orleans history, and making Mardi Gras crafts (masks, jongleur hats, harlequin marionettes…) and taking a little parade to visit the 6th graders who had yet to choose a language (pick French! We do fun stuff in here!)
About 9 years ago our 6th grade students were sent to stay in thier elementary schools because of construction, so I didn’t put as much effort in to our parades as previously because…well….the classes we visited were not interested in WHY were were there, only that we were tossing candy and beads and it frustrated me! (They didn’t care because either they already WERE French students or they were already in Spanish and then would go complain to their Spanish teachers about why they don’t do anything fun! –they do by the way: I got plenty of complaining because we don’t do any Day of the Dead crafts in French from my own students!)
After 6th grade returned we hit it hard again, and it was fun, but the 8th graders have become jaded. They complain “This again? We already did this last yeeeeeaaarrrr!” (I can’t imagine complaining about a teacher’s lesson plan, let alone one where I was left alone to make a craft at the end! But today’s kids are different than the ones I started teaching almost two decades ago)
I decided two years ago (when Mardi Gras conveniently fell over our break so we wouldn’t be in attendance anyway) that we would learn about Quebec’s winter carnival instead. I’ve been working on putting together some activites from this year and am going to post them so I can find them again in two years, and possibly get some feedback! On the every-other-year plan they get to learn about both events (because I’m the only French teacher and my kids loop!)
Webquest: I googled and found a webquest that I copied and adjusted to fit my needs. What I didn’t foresee was that some of my kids would have to tackle the quest with out me leading them through the set up because I would end up at doctors appointments and then out sick.
- What I learned: For as tech-savy as these kids are, they do NOT enjoy clicking on a link to a website then (gasp!) having to read through the website to find answers to questions. They want to click on a link and have the answer magically appear on the screen. (This means next time I will want to write questions of my own such as: Browse the photos and descriptions of activities that take place on February 1st. Pick the three you would choose to attend and tell me where and when it takes place, how much it costs and why you find that activity interesting instead of asking “Which event can you attend from 17h-17h45”)
- Having the quest in Google docs and then assigning it via google classroom is genius, UNLESS the students have NEVER used it with another teacher. Plan to ask kids if they have done an assignment on google docs (or better yet, do a small one earlier in the year with them) before you take them to the computer lab! I was astonished that basically only one kid in each class could navigate changing colors on the doc for type (so I could see their answers) and understood that they didn’t have to hit “share” with me when they were done…and they were panicking about saving the document, when google docs does all the saving for you. (I do assume that in the next few years as more and more of my colleagues become familiar with classroom they will move that direction and the kids will understand it more and more. A long time ago I would have kids make PowerPoint children’s books but had to teach them about PowerPoint because they had only ever used word. Now they are all pretty good at PowerPoint because they use it in a lot of classes)
- Even though everything was clearly explained in the document and google classroom for the students, once they saw that if they finished early they could do duolingo or quizlet they opted to jump right to that with the substitute, complaining “I don’t get it!” instead of actually reading the directions. Make the assignment long enough that they will not finish in once class period. Offer no “if you finish early” announcements.
Scategories Video: Students fill out an alphabet sheet as a way of note-taking during videos. They are randomly put into teams, then they discuss as a team the ‘best word’ for each letter (Q=Queue de castor which is a beaver tail: a popular treat to eat at Carnaval) then we play scategories. Teams that choose a word and can explain why they chose it (meaning they can back it up as having to do with what they learned) and no other team has the same word gets a point. If two teams chose the same word, no point for either team.
What I learned:
- This is a game my grad professor used in a history of education class I took. I have actually used it for years and it never gets old unless you watch too many videos in class! Once you show them how to fill out the alphabet sheet, you have super emergency sub plans because you can have the sub put in any culture or history video and have the kids prep for a scategory game upon return! If over-used they will revolt, just like anything. For the past 6 years or so I have saved the game for Mardi Gras or Carnival videos and not used it for anything else except said super emergency sub plans that I have not had to tap into.
- This year I could not get the video and packet I had borrowed from our lending library last time. I googled videos on youtube and came up with a decent assortment that gives a good feel for what the Carnaval is like. Students actually asked to re-watch a couple of the shorter ones so they could get a better look at the events. This worked MUCH better than the boring educational version I showed two years ago, and they not only remembered more about Carnaval, but they were EXCITED about it, wondering if we could plan our own, wondering how much convincing it would take to get their parents to take them there next year on winter break and planning on googling exact directions to make both beaver tails and the maple candy so they could do it over break. THAT IS WHAT WE’RE GOING FOR!!! Yeay!
- Because we were supposed to play the game today (notes were taken yesterday, teams chosen via my ‘random name picker app’ and words mostly chosen for the game we will play) but we have a snow day we will play tomorrow. The problem with that is that Friday we were supposed to do some craft/puzzle stations and give them time to finish the webquest before break. I don’t want to cancel either, but I also don’t want to extend activites to after vacation either. With out the crafts, we can’t go share with 6th grade. With out the game, the students will not have the reinforcement of summarizing thier learning, and they will be pissy because i promised dumdums to teams who do a good job (read: if they play nicely they will all get dumdums). What to do what to do? I’m still thinking on this one. The storm we are having looks like we might get a delay tomorrow morning which puts an even bigger wrench in my plans. Ultimate lesson: leave PLENTY of wiggle room in the schedule in case of snow days! i could have started a week earlier (I’m not worried about covering curriculum with CI teaching! It all always gets in there. And cultural connections IS in the curriculum, it just often gets overlooked because it’s not ‘on the test’.) I could have planned a St. Valentin lesson for Friday as the ‘extra-okay to drop if needed plan’. (I loathe valentine’s day, so I avoid it effectively by teaching these lessons)
Crafts and Puzzles Stations: Plans are
Craft station:
Snowflake: Students will be making paper snowflakes by following directions at the station. Station directions are in French. Found at the craft page on Carnaval’s website
Bonhomme mask: Students will use paper plates and follow directions in French to make a mask of the beloved Bonhomme also found at the craft page.
Bonhomme puppet: Students will make paper lunch bag puppets of Bonhomme following French directions from the same site. (next time I will plan ahead and get white paper bags, as our store was all out this week! Brown Bonhomme just isn’t as cute! I’m sure there will be jokes about dirty snow)
Puzzle Station:
The plan is to have two or three word puzzles with vocabulary from Carnaval. I have yet to make said puzzles (good thing there was a snow day after all!) A crossword, a wordoku and a scrambled word puzzle all with clues should do it, so they have a choice
Coloring station:
There is not any real reason to have a coloring station and contest except that it is the day before winter break and sometimes the kids just need to decompress. They ARE still children, after all. When offering coloring I usually hold a coloring contest and hang the pictures up in the hallway. Voting on this would have to take place after break. Actually, I will probably nix the coloring station, put the coloring with the crafts and offer them to color over break with prizes then. Maybe. Will they bring the coloring back? I don’t know!
Computer station:
I looked at the work the kids did on the webquest after I took them to the computer lab the second day and explained better how to do the assignment. I’ll set a minimum that I’m looking to be done and the students who have not gotten that far (literally a couple of kids just managed to type IDK next to one question in two periods of work with the sub….) will be given time to complete the minimum, or I will have an alternate short answer assignment they can do instead (a couple of the questions I will have on the webquest the next time around)
Ohhhh Ohhhh or I could have them peruse the website themselves and WRITE the questions for the next webquest. Oh. that would be GREAT!!
I’m not a big stations teacher. I like my group stories and retells. We’ll see how it goes and I will come back and edit as I can!
Reflections on Comprehensible Input 
