Carnaval

Every February at our school, we celebrate Carnaval because we're a French Immersion school (some students attend all subjects in French while others in English from Grades K-7). For those who do not know, it's a big winter celebration in Quebec, where people ice skate, dance, eat maple taffy, etc.

At our school, we invite the Maple Man to come and show us how people celebrate in Quebec through music and dance, and the making of maple syrup as well as try some maple taffy! This was the 1st year I got to participate because I was always teaching during the presentations in previous years. Anyway, I was invited to roll some maple syrup into taffy on sheets of ice with popsicle sticks for students; it was awesome. I felt like a kid again.

It was unfortunate that we were the last session at the school, so he actually ran out of maple taffy for some of us to try! Luckily, he appreciated my help and gave me a bottle of maple syrup instead! I'm very excited to try some of this maple syrup although it's not usually part of my daily diet because its the real thing collected from maple trees. And with global warming, this year's harvesting for maple syrup has actually been poor, so he didn't even bring any to sell this year. This makes my bottle all the more precious.=)