It is true, I dont speak Italian very well. But we had a blast discovering a new language today. Below are some of the activities we completed today as we started out on our Italian adventure. I had a friend email me today and asked WHY I did these "units" with my kids. I know in the middle of her email she was not asking me this question with ill-intent, but while I was responding I kind of felt like I was justifying my summer plans, and I didnt like that. I hope to simply offer my kids a chance to expand their horizons, to think outside the box, to step away from the computer and tv, to stir their imagination and foster their creativity. Thats it and it may look different for each us when we do things with our kids. My kids happen to enjoy our theme weeks during the summer, they are apart of every aspect of the planning phase and the execution phase. We as a family enjoy learning and growing our minds to include other cultures, other countries, and new horizons, we hope you enjoy the journey we are on.
Today we looked at the globe and found Italy, identified surrounding countries and bodies of water. We talked about the "boot" we were looking at and then we looked through the encylopedia and read about Italy and touched on some historical aspects of the country. The kids then found the flag in the book and colored their own Italian flag. (I guess we could have just turned on the World Cup, lol).
Here are a few finds on the computer that helped us with learning the sounds of the Italian language.
Fodors Italian Language Help
Children's Conversation Starters in Italian
Here is a matching sheet we did as we practiced saying our colors in Italian today.. The kids cut the words out and then matched them, we played against each other in a race format to see who could properly identify and match their English color words with the Italian color words.
(note: the colors dont match right to left with the Italian/English words)
At little explorers, you click on the letter and a great picture dictionary page appears
with words in English and Italian...
Here are some cute printables for the days of the week in Italian.
One of the things we are is flexible and today we had a fun surprise visitor and spent a long time catching up with her, so we didnt get to as many things as we had on our chart, and that was (is) fine. What we did, was fun - it included all the kids (ages 5-10). I was so happy to see how active the 5 year old was, too..tried so hard to sound out each new sound of this beautiful language, colored his little heart on on his flag...
We had fun making dinner tonight, fresh homeade garlic bread, pasta and a delicious new sauce we picked up from a specialty market straight from Italy... We usually make our pasta and pasta sauces, but when the kids saw this pasta and sauce and that it was from Italy (being shown during a cooking demonstration) there was no turning back, so I obliged and it was actually very good...
(just realized I didnt take pictures of the kids flags today - but really its a basic flag, lol you can imagine that there are 4 red, white and green colored pages here...)
In addition to our THEME weeks, we also have a "summer fun jar" the kids all wrote down or told me a few things they would like to do over the course of the summer, so I then used the fabulous digital supplies at
Designerdigitals.com to create little note strips with each of the kids ideas. These were then cut in strips, and rolled and tied with ribbon before placing in our summer fun jar.
On Monday, we pull out one from our jar, and sometime during the next week, the kids are surprised with the treat that had been written down. One fun thing we have added to our summer fun jar this summer is the aspect of serving. I feel it is so important to teach our kids to serve the community in which they live..to help those in need..to be of service to others.. So on the back of each strip of paper is a service project, and it has to be completed before we can enjoy the activity on the front. (For example, the kids chose Go Fishing and on the back it says pick up litter at the fishing pier) So that is actually a service we get to complete while enjoying our family activity. I would love to hear how you get your family involved in your neighborhoods and communities.
To help you quickly find the supplies I used to make our summer fun jar, I am posting some links to the store at Designerdigitals below. I have to say I love that I didnt have to run out to the store to buy stickers, papers, etc. Having digital supplies right here on my laptop makes instant crafting and projects so much easier to tackle these days.
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