Saturday, May 22, 2010


Here is the recipe for the "torta della nonna" in italian for the brave ones.

INGREDIENTI
(dosi per 6 persone ed una teglia del Ø di 25 cm.):
  • Per la pasta frolla:
  • 300 g. di farina
  • 150 g. di zucchero in polvere
  • 150 g. di burro (o margarina)
  • Tre rossi d'uovo
  • Un limone
  • Per la crema pasticcera:
  • 90 g. di zucchero in polvere
  • 75 g. di farina
  • 3 tuorli d'uovo
  • ½ litro di latte
  • Un limone
  • Per guarnire:
  • 50 g. di pinoli
  • Zucchero a velo q.b.
Versare sul piano di lavoro la farina a fontana e mettervi in mezzo i rossi d'uovo, lo zucchero, il burro e la buccia del limone precedentemente grattugiata; impastare tutto molto sollecitamente per evitare che la pasta "riscaldi" troppo e che quindi possa "impazzire" (a tal fine e' bene utilizzare gli ingredienti freddi e, prima di impastare, mettere le mani per un po' sotto il gettito dell'acqua fredda), raccogliere tutto in una palla e, dopo averla sistemata in un piattino ed avvolta con della pellicola trasparente, lasciarla riposare in frigorifero per un'ora.

Nel frattempo, preparare la crema pasticcera nel seguente modo: versare in una terrina lo zucchero e i rossi d'uovo; sbattere con una frusta ed aggiungere la farina e la buccia del limone precedentemente grattugiata.

Mettere sul fuoco il latte e quando sara' piuttosto caldo versarlo a piccole quantita' nella terrina, amalgamando bene con la frusta; travasare quindi la crema in un tegamino e portarla sul fuoco, facendola bollire dolcemente per tre-quattro minuti: essa si addensera' gradatamente perdendo il sapore della farina (mentre la crema si raffredda, per essere poi utilizzata nella farcita, ricordarsi di mescolarla di tanto in tanto per impedire che si formi la pellicola sulla superficie).

Foderare quindi la teglia precedentemente imburrata ed infarinata con la pasta frolla, praticare sul fondo una serie di forellini con una forchetta, coprirlo con un disco di carta da forno e appoggiarvi sopra dei fagioli secchi (che poi si conservano in un vetro per futuri usi di questo genere), cosi' da evitare che la pasta durante la cottura si gonfi e resti quindi lo spazio per la farcitura.

Infornare a 180° per circa mezz'ora, lasciare intiepidire e riempire quindi la crostata con la crema pasticcera, guarnendone la superficie con i pinoli e lo zucchero a velo.

Friday in the Ticknor lounge






Yesterday afternoon we had a nice event at Harvard to meet with the children from G&P and their parents. Kelsey and Susannah from the Sackler museum came too!!! By the way, Susannah is an incoming parent at G&P. Her daughter Stella will be in kindergarten in the fall!!! Welcome Susannah.
There was caprese, focaccia, olives, cannoli, torta della nonna, pizzelle and prosecco.
It was nice to meet with all the parents.
We will be gone shortly to Italy for the summer, keep coming on this blog . We will have pics for you from Italy. We will see you soon at G&P for another italian experience.
Thanks everyone . grazie a tutti.
Have a good summer. Buona estate a tutti voi!!!
la squadra di Harvard (Elvira, Cara, Patrizia)

Ps: I will put the "torta della nonna" recipe in the next post.

Sunday, May 2, 2010

K104 Preparation for the Museum Trip



































Hello, wonderful parents of K104! A couple of weeks ago we took our K-104ers to a museum that they were both familiar and un-familiar with--one right at Graham and Parks! The students behaved so well, and we want to share with you all photos of their experience.

The kids were asked questions about "che colori sono nei dipinti," (what colors are in the pictures?), questions about parts of the face: "quanti nasi hai l'uomo?" (how many noses does the man have?" and questions to review vocabulary words they have learned over the course of this spring.

We had a still life section as well as portrait and watercolor paintings. In preparation for our trip on Thursday, we want to remind the students that they should be quiet at the museum, be attentive to their guides and to non toccare i dipinti (not touch the paintings!) We have included a video here for this purpose.

See you Thursday K-104, and we hope you liked the cupcakes from the little girl inside the castle inside the museum! Maybe you'll get to meet her there!





See you soon!

Wacky-Jackie, Teddy and Stacey

Last Lesson in Claudie's Class - April 30

Ciao!
I can't believe this semester is coming to an end already and that we had our last lesson in Claudie's class. It has been so much fun getting to know the G&P Kindergardeners and teaching them Italian! For this last lesson we decided that it would be appropriate to end our time together with a party, but we needed everyone's help to get it going!First, we needed to figure out what decorations we needed. So we took suggestions from the class: we got balloons (palloncini) and hats (cappelli) to start. Then we decided that all good parties need delicious food, so the kids brainstormed pizza (pizza), cake (torta), and ice cream (gelato). As the kids gave their suggestions we posted cutouts of the items on a posterboard that represented our party. If we weren't prepared for one of them we would draw it onto the posterboard. For each word the kids suggested, we would have them repeat it after us in Italian. Here's an example of the cake we posted on the posterboard:

After this we started asking the kids about what kinds of activities happened at parties. One of the kids suggested that we dance (ballamo!). We decided to play a FREEZE dance game with an Italian song and they seemed to really love dancing around tog
ether and freezing when the music stopped. Below is a picture of the kids dancing to the music:


Next we talked about how at parties often people play games, so we played a game of Bingo that would help everyone review what we've learned over the last several weeks. It was amazing how many of the words the kids retained, and if one of them didn't remember what a word meant, another kid at the table would remind them. Eventually a few of the kids got five in a row and were able to call "BINGO!" As you can see these kids were hard
at work filling out their Bingo cards:


After a fun round of Bingo, it was time to mangiare (eat). We brought mini-cupcakes as a treat, because honestly, would it really be a party without cake?! The kids loved it and were relieved to find that the party wasn't just
pretend! We were able to get them to say "Mi piace" (I like it) and we closed by teaching them to say "Io parlo Italiano" (I speak Italian). At the end we took a lovely group photo, as you can see below:



It has been such a joy teaching at the Graham and Parks School this semester and we're really looking forward for our final time together at the museum. We hope it's been a great experience for the whole family and we will keep you posted on how the museum visit goes.

Arrivederci!
Alex, Brennan, e Nick

Saturday, May 1, 2010

Our Last Day (in the class) with Liz and K104!

Dear Parents,
It's hard to believe that the term has come to an end -- we've become so used to visiting Graham & Parks every Wednesday afternoon! Last Wednesday, we made the last trip out there and finished up with a lesson on direction words and a review of everything we've gone over. We started out by showing the class a still-life (also in preparation for a still-life activity at the Sackler Museum next week!) We pointed out various objects in the still-life and placed the actual picture at different points in the room as a way of introducing "direction/location" words. For instance, ABOVE Lam's head is SOPRA. (Dov'e la natura morta? È sopra!). The apple is BELOW the book. (La mela è sotto il libro.) Other words we introduced were "Qui" (here), "Li" (there), "Destra" (right), and "Sinistra" (left). Best of all, without our even asking them, the kids were calling out lots of words they remembered simply by looking at the still-life: "Rosso!", "Due!" and "Bianco."
After this large group session, we broke up into circles of 5-6 students and did some more review with the still-lifes. Each of us has a still-life we had made with many of the cut-out images we had been using all semester: food (latte - milk, mela - apple, uovo - egg, etc.) and face parts (occhi - eyes, boca - mouth, naso - nose, etc.) for instance. We went through the still-life and asked about the various locations of the objects: La boca è sotto o sopra della mela? (The mouth is below or above the apple?) We also used this chance to review numbers and colors: "Quanti occhi sono? (How many eyes are there?) Quanti occhi hai? (How many eyes do you have?) It was amazing how many words the students remembered - they were so eager to demonstrate everything they had learned. It was also great to see how responsive the kids were even though we spoke almost exclusively Italian to them -- they picked up a lot simply based on body signals and sounds.
At the end of the class, we reconvened and made a big circle. Then, we introduced the most important phrase of the semester:
"PARLO ITALIANO!" (I speak Italian!) We did a big cheer and the students seemed to feel quite accomplished in saying that. We then took a group photo - un "serio" one (serious) and un "felice" one (happy/silly).
Even though we will see everyone one more time next week, we wanted to tell you how much we enjoyed our time with your children -- they were so enthusiastic, quick to pick up on things and curious. At home, try asking them: "Parli italiano?" or "Che lingua parli?" (What language do you speak?) Hopefully, they'll remember, "Parlo italiano" and continue to speak it!

Arrivederci!
Julia, Lam e Giancarlo