Snow(y) Day!

I think it's hard to beat snow days as I remember them in my childhood: waking up in the middle of the night because the moon is radiating so brightly off the snow, getting a special breakfast in the middle of the week, spending 30 minutes getting dressed in more layers than you can find in most sedimentary rocks, sledding for hours and then ringing the doorbell for Mom to bring out hot cocoa in those little Gulf gas station mugs...  

We woke up this morning to the first real accumulation of snow of the year (at most an inch), and based on what we experienced today I'd say it's safe to say that snow days are celebrated differently here in Deauville.  I've been asking every French person I know for a couple of weeks now if schools are ever canceled for snow here in the hopes that someone would be able to recall an instance.  Sadly, the response is always the same: School is never canceled and if the roads are too dangerous people just stay home.  Such was the case today.  This is what rue Gambetta looked like as I walked to work this morning at 8.35 am:

Even though that may not be the most daunting image in the world, many parents kept their kids at home today.  There were about 6 students missing from my first class of the morning, the grande section, but the moyenne section class that I teach next had only 13 out of 28 students in attendance.  Since that's the size of the normal half-class that I take at a time, Brigitte (their teacher) suggested that we do something fun pour en profiter (to take advantage of the snow situation), so after recess she, Annick (the aide), and I took the kids into the salle de motricité and did circle dances in English and French with them.  I don't have any strong memories of doing circle dances in preschool, but they are all about them at Breney, and for good reason: it gets the kids wiggles out while working on their direction-following skills and singing, plus they can't really get out of control because they're all holding hands.  Anyway, we ended up doing the English and French versions of the Farmer in the Dell, a song that goes "Savez-vous planter des choux a la mode de chez nous?" (Do you know how to plant cabbages like we do where we're from?) for which we used English body vocab since in the song they plant their cabbages with their toes, their back etc, and Here we go round the mulberry bush.  All in all, a fun way to teach.  Ludique, even.

The playground at Breney (before the kids scooped up every flake of snow to make a few sad looking snowmen).  The round structure you see is the famous salle de motricité)

At Fracasse my lesson plans didn't end up changing due to the snow, but I did have a few (including Marin, who is 6 years old and in love with me) throw snowballs at me.  I managed to restrain myself from throwing any back while I was at school, but as I was walking home from garderie I ran into Enguerran, a CM2 (5th grade) and a nice kid, and we spent several minutes in front of the Mairie pelting each other with snowballs.  A good end to a good day.

Place de la Mairie, taken right after I fled Enguerran's viciousness.  More snow is falling, so we'll see what tomorrow's classes bring!!