Carnaval de Québec: Classroom activities
Le Carnaval de Québec is a yearly winter festival held in Québec City. It has been celebrated consistently since 1955.
I was fortunate enough to be working in Québec in 2017 and we made the trip to visit the carnival. As a French immersion student myself, it was pretty cool to see the thing I’d learned about all those years ago with my own eyes.
While I teach on the other side of the country, it doesn’t stop our school from wanting to celebrate and teach our students about this festival.
Below are some suggested activities for celebrating le Carnaval de Québec in your classroom. I’m from the lower mainland of BC which means we don’t get much of a snowy winter. If you have snow outside, there are lots of relays or building activities that you can do in addition to those below.
Activity ideas
A bracket style event to find their favourite song. Click the link for the sheet & playlist
La tire sur la neige. Locally we have “the Maple Man” who does visits to schools and brings his snow to those of us without snow outside.
Create an “effigie” - see below for link to download a Bonhomme to decorate
This is typically attached to your jacket when going to the festival.
We attached ours to red yarn and put them around our necks
Build ice palaces or snow sculptures from toothpicks and marshmallows
Suggested as 1 bag of mini marshmallows + 1 pack toothpicks per group of 5 students
Create a ceinture fléchée bracelet using yarn (yellow, red, blue, white, green)
Design a ceinture fléchée (on paper)
Learn the dance La Bastringue
Resources available on TPT
Virtual field trip (First Grade Frenchies)
School event bundle (Clements’ Classroom)
Carnaval workbook and vocab cards (The French Apple)
Carnaval de Québec slides (Frenchprof22)
These are paid products from creators I am not affiliated with. There are many other options if you search Carnaval de Québec, especially for older students. Please do your own research before choosing to purchase any product to ensure it’s right for you.
Examples of activities below:
Effigie (design given by another teacher). A different one is provided via the button below.
La tire sur la neige - thanks to a presentation we had come into our school
Working our way through our Manie Musicale Québécoise
Memory game (available in the activities via Carnaval website)
*note: for the memory game, I only realized after that you can see the image through (printed on regular paper) and had to do a last minute pivot to play the game so you’d want to print on heavier card stock or put some other colour behind it.
Songs
Videos
PE or outside games
Tug of war
Box country skiing
Need 4 boxes and 2 cones. Divide into two teams. 2 players race each other. Students will put their feet in boxes and must slide their feet as if on skis. Go around the cones and back to the line. Pass the box skis to the next player.
Snowball race
Need two medicine balls or other large balls and 2 cones. Divide into two teams. 2 players race each other. Students will roll the ball (the snowball) around the cone and back to the line. Pass the ball to the next player.
Ping pong ball relay
Divide into two teams. Players will walk with a pingpong ball on a spoon around obstacles or chairs and back to their team. They must transfer their ball to the next player’s spoon.
Carpet race
Need 4 small rectangular carpets or mats. Divide into two teams. 2 players race each other. Students will try to reach the other side but their feet cannot touch the ground. They must step on the first carpet, toss the other and jump to it. Then, throw the first carpet forward. Repeat until they reach the end.
Snowball toss
Need scoops and wiffle balls. Toss the snowballs back and forth.
Snowball fight
Dodgeball but call them snowballs instead.
Designate two bonhommes who can rescue people (like in doctor dodgeball)
Floor hockey
Musical chairs using Québecois music
Freeze dance using Québecois music
Limbo
Obstacle course