Alicia Wallace
Rossland News
Last week Rossland Summit School (RSS) kicked off the winter carnival with a French winter carnival activity day for the students.
The full day event on Thursday, Jan. 29, was a great opportunity for the students from kindergarten through Grade 8 to enjoy festive activities that incorporated French culture and history. These events coincided with Rossland’s winter carnival. It was a chance for the school to celebrate the longest running carnival — Rossland’s, and Quebec’s winter carnival — the oldest of its kind.
School principal Karen Lavender explains that besides the fun, there were many learning outcomes from the day’s celebration.
“The focus of the day was to bring the school together to experience fun across the grades and to allow the older students an opportunity to be leaders. The younger students were actively engaging in the French language activities and the cultural experiences,” she said.
In the morning, the kindergarten to Grade 5 classes had a group of older students teaching them about winter carnival. The younger students learned about the culture and French language affiliated with the celebration. At midday all of the students went to the field for a series of five fun activities.
“This included snow sculpting, sled races and snowshoe relays,” said Lavender.
After the outdoor activities, the students went inside to warm up with some apple cider and BeaverTails made by the French immersion classes. The entire student body then congregated in the gym and had an afternoon of team activities; being visited by Bonhomme and learning a jig to the fiddle played by a former student of RSS.