Europe Week: Benvenuto in Italia

Goodbye England, ciao Italia! We've landed in the gorgeous boot-shaped land of pasta, piazzas (large public squares) and art... lots of famous Renaissance painters are Italian! Da Vinci, Michelangelo, Donatello and Raphael just to name a few! (The ninja turtle reference does not escape me and it did not escape a few of my campers either... lol)  I asked them to give me some words that came to mind when they thought of Italy and I got answers like... pasta, pizza, the leaning Tower of Pisa, (yep they knew about that before I mentioned it), football, the city of Rome and even the Sistine Chapel. 

By now you realize I like using technology to assist in our learning... so we took in a short clip about Italy! 

After our video clip we talked a bit more about the leaning Tower of Pisa. This Tower which was built in 1173 was a marvel of architecture for its time, but what made it famous was its noticeable tilt which started to appear a few years after it was built! It has since been named a UNESCO World Heritage Site and measures have been taken to 'preserve' the tilt while ensuring it doesn't collapse! So my Imaginators were tasked to create a picture of the Tower of Pisa as our souvenir of Italy! 

But that's not all... they had to do this painting lying on their backs and looking up just like the great Renaissance artist Michelangelo painted the Sistine Chapel! They couldn't quite believe I was asking them to do this... the look on their faces was just priceless LOL! But they had a blast! I'm sure they all went home with a great appreciation for this old master artist, and they'll never forget who painted the Sistine Chapel! 

For my younger Imaginators I decided to focus on another amazing part of Italy... Venice! This floating city is nothing short of awe-inspiring and before we started our art for the day we talked about what it must be like to live there! Imagine if instead of a car we all took a boat to school! Wouldn't that be terrific! 

My little ones then used a very fun printing technique to create our Venice inspired reflection buildings! Take a look at them in action! 

Check out the stories they heard at The Reading Garden!