Claudie's Class 4/16

Hi again! This week in Italian class we continued to prepare for our visit to the Harvard Sackler Museum. As always we began our lesson with Giro Giro Tondo- the kids all know the words by heart now! Here is a picture of some of them while playing... Next

Next we read a story about a little girl in a museum- The Girl in the Castle Inside the Museum by Kate Bernheimer.

While we read the story there were five Italian words that we learned- castello (castle), museo (museum), bambina (girl), musica (music), and sole (sun). Every time those words came up in the story one teacher held up the corresponding image and all the kids said the word in Italian. This was a really fun way to have everyone involved and by the end the kids were doing so well the didn't even need to wait to see the image!

When we go to the real museum we are going to look for something from the little girl because she told the Italian teachers she is going to leave something special for us there! After finishing the book we played Head, Shoulder, Knees, and Toes (Testa, Spalle, Ginocchia, Piedi) again. The kids were impressive in their ability to both say the italian words and sing the song faster and faster each time! Here is a picture during the game...

For parts of the body we learned playing Head, Shoulders, Knees, and Toes we also learned action verbs that will help us when we go to the museum.

Occhi (eyes)- guardare (look) At the museum we will look at lots of paintings!

Mani (hands)- toccare (touch) At the museum we cannot touch the paintings!

Orecchi (ears)- ascoltare (listen) At the museum we must listen to instructions!

Bocca (mouth)- parlare (talk) At the museum we must speak softly (parlare piano)!

Piedi (feet)- camminare (walk) At the museum we should walk, not run!

Each action verb had a gesture or a motion that we also learned. Then we played a memory game where we, the teachers, would say either the body part or the action verb and then the kids had to say the partner word that we didn't say. This was challenging to begin with but the kids caught on. Afterwards we looked at the self portraits (autoritratti) that the kids drew last week. We went through each one and asked questions about colors, numbers, parts of the body, and family members. The kids did a wonderful job responding in Italian- they have learned so much and are ready to learn more! Finally we played Giro Giro Tondo one last time to close. The thing that impressed me most about this lesson was the amount of italian the kids understood. We had two teachers speaking only in Italian this week and all the questions we asked were only in Italian. The kid understood and were able to respond! This was so amazing! Keep up the good work!

Ciao,

Brennan, Alex, Nick, Alex