Country Day: Italy

We are excited to be back with another Country Day post on Italy. Enjoy learning about this amazing country with your kids by using some of the activities below.

Then find all of our past country day posts on England, France, Africa, and Russia, here.

Foods

You can't think about Italy without thinking about Pizza! Try this fun recipe for making mini pizzas from Tortillas.

Tortizzas!

Try different types of pasta. You could set up a pasta bar with different noodles and different types of sauce. (The sauces could even come from bottles or cans. Shh! just don't tell any Italians.) Look below for more fun crafts made with pasta noodles.

Enjoy some Italian Gelato.

Make an Italian Soda.
Here is a great post on How to Create an Italian Soda Bar from Our Best Bites.  Yum!

Crafts
Here are some fun crafts using pasta. I know stringing pasta necklaces is a standby but look at these fun ways to broaden our pasta and crafting horizons!

Rigatoni Italian Flag

Look at these Colorful Pasta Monsters

The Culture Cottage has two great craft ideas.

Don't you love this Leaning Tower of Pisa made with Fun Foam?  I can see my nephews having so much fun trying to knock this tower over with foam balls or a squirt gun!

And this gondolier is also found at the Culture Cottage site above. He is so cute!

Exploring Italian Artists

You can't learn about Italy without trying to paint in the style of a few Italian Masters.

Try painting like Michelangelo by taping some paper underneath a chair or low table. Then lay underneath it and color your picture with crayons. Or if you are really brave and don't mind getting dripped on use paint! Find some fun instructions here.

I love this idea of making a simple egg tempura paint over at Tinker Lab. This type of paint was used by great Italian artists like Botticelli, Giotto, and Fra Angelico.
Show your kids some of their works of art and then create some masterpieces of your own.

Simple Egg Tempura

Big Kids will love learning about the Renaissance Man Leonardo Da Vinci (See books below). They will also love trying their hand at making their own original flying machine with some Leonardo inspiration.

Make a Paper Flying Machine

Games

Here is a great site for some traditional Italian children's games. I especially like the game called: Johnny My Pony.
Doesn't that sound so funny?

John My Pony is an outdoor or indoor game in which six players of equal strength form opposite teams. One of the teams assembles a "pony" with their bodies on their hands and knees. Once accomplished, the players making the creature close their eyes. The opposite side sends a few players to sit on the others who must guess how many players are sitting on the pony.

Songs

Mama Lisa's site has lots of Italian nursery rhymes, counting games and songs. 

Movies About Italy

Here are some great classics that are worth seeing again or for the first time.

And some more modern movies set in Italy.

Books About Italy

You must read some of the Strego Nona stories by Tomie dePaola. Strego Nona is an Italian witch who makes an appearance in many folk tales and stories. These books are laugh out loud funny! You will want to read about her adventures over and over again. Strega Nona- Her Story and Big Anthony are two of my favorites.

 Here are some more information books about Italy.

Here is a great book about an important Italian Scientist Galileo.

And a fun exploration of Leonardo Da Vinci.

Ciao! Pin It

Spring Break Staycation with QR Codes

We have three different Spring Breaks around our house with different colleges, high schools and elementary school schedules. So going away for Spring Break isn't really possible this year. But I still want to do something to make the time off fun for my kids. Thus the Spring Break Staycation was born!

I have created 6 different theme day ideas.
We have:

Wizard Day

Pirate Day

Knight Day

Super Hero Day

Drama Day

And Pajama Party Day

You can choose to do all six days for your stay-cation or just a day or two to enliven your week. The idea is simple. On the morning of your special day, just put the QR code in an envelope or wrap it up in a fancy box. Let your kids open it and scan the QR Code with your smart phone or tablet. That's it!

I am serious! When the kids scan the day's QR Code, the fun picture will appear announcing the theme of the day. Then after they scroll down they will see a list of possible activities they can participate in that day. They can pick and choose the activities that they want to do or create some of their own and the fun begins! I wouldn't get anything ready ahead of time. This isn't some massive six-day birthday party that Mom has to put on for the kids!

Here is a list for the Wizard Day:
Make Magic Wands
Mix Magical Potions
Learn some Magic Tricks
Perform in a Magic Show
Create some original magic spells
Watch a movie about Wizards
Try some Trick Photography and make someone disappear
Make a fairy house outside with objects from Nature
Read a magical book
Write with magical disappearing ink
Make a wish on a magic star

Each list contains 10 to 15 possible activity ideas. The list is just a jump-start and some inspiration for having fun together. Don't shop ahead of time for any special foods or supplies. Taking the kids shopping to find the perfect foods for Pajama Party Day (in their pajamas, of course) is half the fun. Let the kids own it. Let them figure it out. Let them take it away. Trust me. That is half the fun.

If you don't have all the supplies needed, that is okay. Let them improvise. You will be amazed at what they come up with on their own. Good luck creating a memorable stay-cation at home this year. You may have so much fun that it becomes a tradition every year. Enjoy!

Staycation QR Codes for all six theme days

Theme Day Pictures
(Use these if you don't have a QR Code reader and want to put the pictures in envelopes.)

Here are the lists of Activities for each day if you want to go directly there without the QR Codes:

Wizard Day

Knight Day

Pirate Day

Drama Day

Pajama Party Day

Super Hero Day

*Thanks to Phillip Martin for the cute free clip art used in this post. Pin It

Fun and Easy Competition Counting Game

Here is my favorite quick and easy game. It is the perfect number game to help children learn to count from 1 to 50 or from 1 to 10 or from 1 to 100 or whatever you are working on. You will see how adaptable it is.

All you need is:

A pencil
A piece of paper
Two dice

Have the players sit in a circle with the piece of paper and pencil in the middle. This can be on a table or even on the floor. Start to pass around the dice. Whenever someone rolls a double, they grab the piece of paper and start to write numbers on the paper from 1 to 50.

They continue writing as quickly as they can, until someone else rolls a double and steals the paper. That person continues writing numbers by picking up wherever the player before them left off. (For example: 35... New Player 36, 37, and so on.)

Whoever gets to write the number 50 before they lose their turn, wins that round! You can keep track of how many points each player has received on the back of the number page.

Continue until everyone gets bored, which surprisingly takes quite a long time!

The play can be adapted to any age child. Count up to 100 or just up to 10 or 20 to reinforce whatever numbers you are working on. You could even count by 2's, 3's, 5's or 10's for an added challenge.

I would suggest that you try this game the next time you are waiting for your meal at a restaurant, but I have to warn you..  play does get a little loud! There is something about the competitive element of trying to beat the dice that makes this math game loads of fun.

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More Reptile Fun

Here are a few other activities we have done to round out our study of reptiles. I have to admit I am not a reptile lover but these activities were lots of fun.

Cold-Blooded

For this activity, the students made a paper lizard and then put him outside in different areas with a thermometer to see how his temperature varied in the sun and in the shade. Here the students took a picture of their lizard with the iPad's infa-red camera feature! Doesn't that look fun!

You can also follow the instructions at the link above to move your lizard around during the day and try to keep him alive by staying within his safe temperature zone! I think this would make the beginnings of a terrific elementary science experiment.

Snake Sniffers

For this activity I gathered up 10 different scents and put the scents on cotton balls. I made two cotton balls for each scent. Then I put the cotton balls in envelopes, mixed them up,and handed one envelope to each student. The scents were not labeled in any way. The students then had to wander around the room and sniff each other's envelopes until they could find their match. It was not as easy as it seems. This was lots of fun!

Toad Houses
The Reptiles Alive Website also has fun ideas for building toad houses out of clay pots.

Here are some other amazing toad house designs from Pinterest.

This website also has word searches and other fun reptile ideas.

Here is another one of the student's great camo chameleons. I found the camo chameleon idea at reptiles alive as well. Find that here.

And here is a fantastic Ted Talk for reptile and robot enthusiasts. Learn how scientists are using gecko feet as  model for building robots that can scale walls. Take that Spiderman!

All of these ideas would be fun for a reptile inspired birthday party or summer camp day!

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