This three period lesson was a hit as it ended with a yummy treat!

Ingredients for the bûche de Noël

Concepts Explored:

• Comparing food eaten during the winter holiday by each student to a traditional Canadian Francophone Christmas Dinner

Activities:

• Venn Diagram
• Bûche de Noël (Yule Log)

Stacking the wafers with Cool Whip

I began this lesson by describing a traditional meal a Canadian Francophone might eat at Christmas.  The list included: turkey, cranberry sauce, carrots, potatoes, yams, green beans, Brussels sprouts, tourtiere, bûche de Noël, cheese, bread and ham.

Then after role modelling what I ate this Christmas with my German family, students created a Venn diagram comparing their own holiday meals to the list of food for the Canadian Francophone family.

Venn Diagram of Holiday Food

(The key is to include enough vegetables).

The next class, we made the bûche de Noël using Cool Whip and Chocolate Wafers.  We watched two short videos (video 1, video 2)  and talked about the history of the Yule Log.

Working on our bûche de Noël

During the third class, we made a Venn Diagram with pictures based on the written Venn Diagram they had completed the previous class.  I had asked students, if they wish, to bring pictures of food.  I also did a Google image search for all the Francophone Food as well as a Google image search for general food and printed many pages of the images.

Final Project – Venn Diagram

While we were making a second Venn Diagram, we ate the bûche de Noël. Yummy!

The final yummy treat!