Ciao, Italy! On Tuesday, European Week took us to Italian soil.
The children explored Italy's landmarks: the Colosseum, the tower of Pisa and, of course, pizza. Each of them opens a different conversation. The Colosseum brings up age — what two thousand years actually amount to, if you count them in generations of grandparents. The tower of Pisa brings up balance and ground conditions: why a building leans and why, even so, it does not fall. And pizza brings up the way dishes travel from one country to another and become, along the way, everybody's.
We discovered the beauty of the country through games, creative activities and a great deal of good cheer. At their age, geography is not learned from maps but from images they can recognise and stories they can retell at home. The map comes later, to put order into what they already know.
The week went on with other European stops, just as colourful.