Help us out, we are Spanish teachers…How are you celebrating Mardi Gras in class?
Mardi Gras
by Kara Parker | Feb 12, 2013 | April, Carnaval/Mardi Gras, Culture, March, March/April | 13 comments
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Hi!
I teach both French and Spanish, and some years I just let the French students have their fun because so many great hispanic holidays fall throughout the school year.
Some years, however, I let my Spanish students revel in el Carnaval de Ponce, from Puerto Rico. I show a short animated story about Los Vejigantes and the students make vejigante masks out of construction paper. We also look at some professionally made masks online. I’m secretly hoping some thoughtful child gives me one for an end-of-the-year gift some year!
Check this out: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carnaval_de_Ponce
The Vejigantes are more associated with the Festival of St. James the Apostle in Loiza, but that’s in July.
Where do you find the animated video you show? Thanks!
At the dollar store, you can get an entire collection of beads suitable for Mardi Gras in the birthday section for a “princess” birthday. I love the dollar store!
I’m in Louisiana, so it’s a big deal. We celebrated Los tres reyes magos on January 6th to kick off the season and made sure to have Rosca to show them that Mardi Gras and Carnival are verrrry similar. We then did some research in videos and online about Carnival, and wrote an essay comparing and contrasting the two.
We are watching a short video about the history of Mardi Gras and Lent. Most of my students are Hispanic and Christian, so they are familiar with Lent. We focus on why the holiday has turned into such a raucous celebration.
Then we eat King cakes, crepes, gumbo, red beans and rice, and whatever else the students want to bring, while listening to traditional Mardi Gras music.
At some point, I will force them to get up and dance to a “Just Dance” video on YouTube.
We also make masks with faux sparkly jewels and feathers.
Wow! Can I come next year?!? Sounds fun!
In my years of traveling and studying abroad, I have yet to encounter any big Hispanic celebrations around Mardi Gras (Brazil being the obvious exception, but that is not relevant to my work as a Spanish teacher.) It seems like most of the people I know are focused more on the religious aspects of Lent and looking more toward Easter. I would love some links and ideas on how this is celebrated because the French and German teachers at school always want to have some big school-wide festival and I’m at a loss as to how to participate in a culturally authentic way. Thanks! –Anne
We watched a video about Carnaval, and since I teach at a Catholic school, we compared it to other Pre-Lent celebrations.
Carnaval is big in Spain. Each region seems to have their own celebration, but the Carnaval in Cadiz was the one I heard the most about. They also have a pretty big celebration in Badajoz. If you google them, you can find some information and even some tourist brochures.
This year I didn’t get around to it but in the past I taught about el carnaval de Barranquilla- a lesser known but beautiful 3 day event in Barranquilla, Colombia. There are tons of pictures online and they have a facebook page worth checking out – https://www.facebook.com/barranquilladecarnaval?fref=ts
Also- I have been to el carnaval de Barranquilla (my family lives there) and have personal pics I can share if anyone is interested. 🙂
Check out Uruguay. They celebrate Carnaval for 40 days one of the longest. Also, check out murgas and candombe. Bablingua has a good video on it. And I agree with Katherine, Barranquilla is stunning.
One year I had my students make cascarones. It was a small class of older students, though. And we talked about the significance of them and breaking them over people’s heads. 🙂 [I didn’t let them break them in class!]