The day before the start of Lent isShrove Tuesday or Pancake Tuesday.British people make pancakes on that

Day, tossing them in the airFrom the frying pan!

Some towns have a Pancake race….

• ARLECCHINO’S CAKES

• Recipe

• 200 g. of margarine

• 200 g. of sugar

• 4 eggs

• 200 g. of flour

• A little water

• 1. Cream margarine and sugar until light and fluffy.• 2. Beat in eggs one at a time, adding a little flour with each.• 3. Gently add remaining flour and a little water to form a thick

mixture.• 4. Put about a spoonful of the mixture into paper cake cups.

And bake at 190°C for about 20 minutes.• 5. Leave cakes to cool , put a little white icing on top of each

cake and then sprinkle with coloured hundreds and thousands.

• What is Mardi Gras?

• Mardi Gras is French for "Fat Tuesday". The name comes from the ancient custom of parading a fat ox through Paris on this day. The ox was to remind the people that they were not allowed to eat meat during Lent. Lent runs from Ash Wednesday to Easter Sunday.

• Mardi Gras isn’t always the same date. It can be between February 3rd and March 9th. The date depends on when Easter falls.

• French people who went to the United States took the custom of Mardi Gras with them. The most famous festival in the USA (and perhaps the world) is in New Orleans, Louisiana But Mardi Gras parades happen throughout the world. Biloxi in Mississippi, Rio de Janeiro in Brazil, Nice in France, Binche in Belgium and Viareggio in Italy are just a few examples.

• The Tuesday that Mardi Gras falls on is also known as Shrove Tuesday. The name comes from the custom of confessing on the day before lent. Shrove means "to be forgiven your sins."

• Mardi Gras Customs:• In Italy, people dress up in costumes and have parades

with elaborate floats during Mardi Gras.• In Rio de Janeiro, people dance in the streets.• In Nice, France people wear giant masks in the Mardi

Gras parade (it looks like a bunch of walking heads with tiny bodies).

• In Binche, Belgium people dress in colourful clown costumes (the clowns are called gilles) The clowns wear bunches of ostrich feathers on their heads and dance in the streets. They carry baskets of oranges which they throw to the watching crowds.

• In New Orleans everyone dresses up in costumes and trinkets, especially beads and coins, are tossed to the crowds from the parade floats. The traditional colours of Mardi Gras are purple (symbolic of justice), green (symbolic of faith) and gold (symbolic of power).

• Carnival Characters - Pretend to be a writer

• When you write a story, you need to describe the people in it for your readers.

• Choose one of the Carnival characters in your classroom. Read the following questions and answer.

• What’s your character’s name?

• What does your character do for a living? (He/she fights against the forces of evil…)

• What’s your character’s build? (Is he/she tall or short, large or small, muscular, overweight, slim…?)

• What does he/she look like? (Describe their age- old/young; hair –colour/length; face shape- round/oval/square; skin colouring –light/dark: the expression on their face)

• What’s he/she wearing?

• What kind of person do you think he/she is? (kind/cruel; friendly/unfriendly; happy/sad; good/bad…).