New France

Hey Grade 7 His and Her-storians! Before we start travelling through time, we need to do a little review and dig into New France!

New France was located in North America during the 18th Century (the 1700s) and in order to get to modern Canada, we will begin our historical adventures there!

Let's go!

For this webquest, you will be creating a foldable based on New France using all of the materials provided. At the end of your foldable, after all of your research is done, you will be doing a creative piece where you create your own person from New France. If you have any questions, don't forget to ask Miss Badger!

First thing: fold your papers!

Next, title the front of the foldable New France.

The other sections of your foldable should be:

Location and Foundation Facts

People and Jobs

Society and Culture

Imaginary New France Friend

Now it's research time! Read the following and use your laptop/tablet to research when asked to fill in your foldable.

Make sure that you write in JOT NOTES inside your foldable. This means you should read the information first, decide what is MOST important, and then write down ONLY the most important stuff using short, incomplete sentences.

Location & Foundation:

Using your tablet/laptop, look up a map of New France. In your foldable, write a note about where New France would be located in current day Canada.

After you've located New France, do a bit more digging on the internet to find out who founded New France, when they founded it, and what country is linked to New France.

Send Miss Badger a picture of New France to be printed for your foldable.

People and Jobs:

Men 
 Most of the men in New France were farmers. Life was very hard for the farmer. He was the one who was responsible for producing food. He had to farm and also hunt to get food for his family. Taking care of his farm and family was his number one job. 

Women 
 Women also had to work very hard. She had to take care of the house. She had to cook for her family. She also had to take care of the younger children. Sometimes women had 15 children or more. She made clothes for her family too using cloth that she spun. 

Children 
 When children were old enough, they either helped their mothers (girls) or their fathers (boys). Small children might bring in the wood for the fireplace. Older girls would help cook, clean and make clothes. Fathers would teach their sons how to ice fish. All the children would help gather maple sap in the spring. When a boy was eleven or twelve, he could do a man's work. He would help his father cut wood, carry stones from the field and build fences. He also helped plow, mow the hay and gather the crops. Older children would take care of the garden. This would be a practice for when they had their own farms.

School
Very few children went to school because the only schools were in the large towns that were too far away. There were no local schools like we have today. If children did learn to read, they learned from a parent who could read. Sometimes they learned from an older brother who had become a priest. Anyone who became a priest was sent to school as part of his training. He would then be sent to serve in the local churches. If he had time, he might even start a school. In those days, school was not as important as it is now. You did not have to read to be a farmer or farmer's wife as most of the people were. The only people who went to school were the sons and daughters of merchants or the rich citizens of New France. Schools were run by the church because the nuns and priests were educated

  Clothing 
Women wore shirts and skirts made of linen, cotton and hemp. Men wore knee breeches (pants that tied at the knee) and jerkins (jackets). They also wore wide-brimmed hats and tapabords (with earflaps) To survive the cold winter, the habitant copied some of the Amerindian (Indian) clothing. He wore mittens and moose leather boots lined with beaver fur and a fur-lined coat (pelise). To walk in the snow, he wore snowshoes and loaded his provisions on a toboggan which slides on snow and ice.

Using the internet, look up a picture of fashion from New France. Add a jot note about how the clothing reflects where in North America New France was located. Send your favourite outfit picture to Miss Badger to print for your foldable!

Society and Culture:

May Day: The farmers worked very hard all year. There were times when they relaxed and had a party. One of those times was May Day held on May 1st of every year. A tree is raised with garlands and streamers hanging from the top. Then the men shoot at the top while a drum and trumpet are played. The seigneur then invites everyone in for breakfast. They ate food liked smoked venison, fresh and smoked fish of every kind, pork cuts, bacon, bread and sweets, poultry, baked beans, pumpkin pies, pea soup, squash cakes and maple sugar candy. 

St Martin's Day: On this day the farmers paid rent to the seigneur and then went to church. Afterward they ate, sang and danced. 

Parties: Everyone was religious and went to church every week. On church holidays, no one worked. There were parish parties all through the year. The Roman Catholic Church did not approve of dancing except on certain days. Often these dances lasted far into the night. In the 

Home: The home is where most people got together to have fun. People loved to play cards. Most homes had a deck of cards. They also loved to play tric-trac (similar to backgammon), checkers and galet. Galet was played on a long narrow table, with a groove all around it. The player tried to slide a flat round pebble (a galet) from one end of the table to the other without it falling into a groove. In the summer, younger children played outside. They floated pieces in the shallow part of the river. They climbed trees. In winter, they played outside in the snow. They also coasted down hills on their sleds.

Using the internet, look up pictures of the different holidays and celebrations listed here. Send your favourite picture to Miss Badger to print for your foldable!

Lastly, using all the information that you've read and researched about New France, create an Imaginary New France Friend!

To do this, think of:

- a name

- a job

- age

- family

- their home

- their income

- what they do with their free time

After you've thought of this, use the last page of your foldable to draw a picture of your new friend and to write a little biography using the information asked above.

Phew! You did it! You are now an expert on New France!

Your final task is to write your favourite thing or most interesting thing that you learned about New France on the back of your foldable.

After, hand in your foldable to Miss Badger.