Daily Archives: September 19, 2010

Cinque piccole zucche

Cinque piccole zucche

La Piazza di Carolina, asilo italiano

 

October is a great time to do a lesson about pumpkins le zucche. This is one of our favorite topics because there is material available in English and Italian.

We start by introducing the word la zucca for pumpkin. We show real pumpkins and cut-out pumpkins that we pass around and have the kids repeat the word.

pumpkins jack_o_lantern

We talk about the color, arancione, and have kids find orange things in the classroom.

We then read the book: “Five Litte Pumpkins”, by Dan Yaccarino. We translate it in Italian.

five_little_pumpkins_book

We also listen to the poem in Italian, Cinque piccole zucche, which can be found on the

Teach Me Everyday Italian Volume 2 teach_me_everday_Italian_Vol_2

We memorize the poem in Italian:

Cinque piccole zucche sedute sul muretto
La prima dice: Cielo, fa freschetto!
La seconda dice: Le streghe son nel vento.
La terza dice: Io non mi spavento.
La quarta dice: Dobbiamo presto partire.
La quinta dice: Oh no! Mi voglio divertire.
Huuh “Huuh dice il vento. La luce se ne va
E le zucche fuggono di qua e di l .

Watch our video here. Click Here

Finally we make a crafty picture of the scene.

cinque_piccole_zucche_001

L’ultimo giorno a Yorktown Heights

Friday was our last day of Italian Camp in Yorktown Heights. So we decided to have a celebration – an Italian Carnevale celebration to be more specific.

In Italia children celebrate Carnevale (usually held in February right before Lent) by dressing up in costumi (costumes) and maschere (masks) much like American children do for Halloween.carnevalebambini

They sing and dance and throw coriandoli (confetti) and stelle filanti (like ticker tape or flying ribbons/stars), and eat dolci (sweets).

Although our campers did not come to camp in costume, they did make masks and painted pictures of pagliacci (clowns). All the bambine (girls) were fate (fairies) and the bambini (boys) were conigli (bunnies).maschere

Once we had our maschere, coriandoli, e stelle filanti, we danced and sang to a wonderful Carnevale song called “Carnevale eccola qua’.” We filmed a video but I can’t seem to upload it onto Youtube. I’ll keep trying though.

For merenda (snack) we had special dolci from the pasticceria (bakery). We had biscotti (cookies) in the shape of dinosauri, pulcini, and farfalle (dinosaurs, chicks, butterflies).biscotti

These were the last two biscotti and they were also devoured.

Each day during Italian camp the bambini had time to giocare fuori (play outside) in the parco giochi (playground) where there was opportunity to get wet under the spruzzatore (sprinkler) and play in the sabbia – sandbox.

Vanessa Gio'

Our counselors did a great job too! Grazie alla Andrea, Camilla, and Anna. They were the perfect addition to a great two weeks at Italian Camp.

Andrea and Camilla

We’d also like to say “Grazie!” to the Rosenthall JCC in Yorktown Heights. Carol and Jennifer were extremely accomodating and molto gentili! Grazie mille!

group photo

Arrivederci l’anno prossimo!

Pioggia Pioggia Vattene Via!

Today marked the first day of the second session of the Italian Camp, this time set in La Piazza di Carolina in Yonkers. It was exciting to have a new group of children eager to begin learning the Italian language. This group is younger- the children are all between 2 and 4 years old so we are modifying the lessons as we go along to make sure they are at an appropriate level for the children. A few had already been exposed to the language and had taken various classes offered by La Piazza di Carolina so I was interested to see what they had retained from those experiences. We started the day off by decorating red and green folders with pictures and stamps of places and famous buildings all around Italy. We then did circolo where we sang the “Buon Giorno” song to each child. We had the campers choose uova or bastoncini (types of maracas) to use as they sang. There were various colors of the instruments to choose from so the children learned the different colors in Italian: rosso, verde, blu, azzurro, rosa, and viola. The song is sang to the tune of the “Happy Birthday” song:

Buon giorno bambini

Buon giorno bambini

Buon giorno bambini

Buon giorno a voi!

Buon giorno Angelina

Buon giorno Angelina

Buon giorno Angelina

Buon giorno a te!

Inspired by the torrential rain we had today, we decided to focus the lesson on la pioggia and other words associated with this theme. We did an activity where we placed il cielo (a blue tablecloth) on the floor and had the children place le nuvole, la pioggia, la neve, il sole, la luna, and un arcobaleno onto il cielo.

cielo

cielosong

We sang a song about all of these words associated with weather called “Su nel cielo”, by La Fata Italiana, and then we sang the Italian verson of “Rain Rain Go Away”:

Pioggia, pioggia

Vattene vita

Torna un altro giorno

Vincenzo vuol giocare

Pioggia vattene via!

We then had craft time. Each child painted a paper plate with yellow paint and placed due occhi neri and una bocca rossa on the plate to make il sole.

ilsole craft

soniavincsole

angelinasole

Luckily the rain eventually let up so after la merenda the children played outside in the spruzzatore and piscina.

babypool

angelinawater

We did another circolo to review everything we had learned that day and then sang the “Ciao Bambini Ciao” song.

The children were very enthusiastic today and I am eager to see the progress they will make over the course of the next two weeks!