May 18th- Bambini

May 18th

Today was my first day in an Italian elementary school. As we stood outside the entrance gate, I noticed that when the students arrived, they were not alone. Either you saw a child being walked by their mom, dad, maybe elder siblings, and even their grandparents. As we went into the classroom the children looked at us and we looked at them. We are all just so curious about each other. My biggest worry was, how will I communicate with them? It turned out that it all went great! I was able to pick up a few words and talk to them. I would take any opportunity to ask "How do I say...(for example: red)?" Just how I had trouble understanding and communicating with them they had the say trouble with me.

Dr. Marciano did the introduction and to get the kids interested we all drew an alligator. Mr. Ray (Dr. MArciano's husband) gave the "bambino" (children) a little art lesson with the alligator. This pretty much worked an icebreaker. They enjoyed it and from the art lesson we went into "reading" Where's Walrus? We really couldn't read it because the book was a picture book. However we flipped through the pages, making sure the students looked closely. Then we had the students draw Walrus as a tourist in Aosta. I was amazed by the drawings and he effort the students were putting into the drawings. They drew the Roman Theater, the mountains, churches, Arch of Augustus, and many more. Their drawings were amazing. The included lots of detail and they were really enjoying the activity. My favorite part was when we sang a song to the students, the students were between 10 and 12 years old. We sung to them "Head, Shoulders,Knees, and Toes. They had lots of fun with it. The class then sung us a song. 

It was the same for the second class. We had so much fun! After we got done with the first school we went for lunch. Our lunch was a cheeseburger! Hey, it was a student special. I am trying to save some money here! :) it was okay, I mean I only ate it because I needed to eat something. After lunch we headed to the second school. In the second school there was less technology compared to the first class we went to. In the second school, third class of the day, it began the same as the first school except these students had no questions for us so we had to work on getting them comfortable. When we drew the alligator, they seemed more comfortable with us. They too enjoyed singing "Head, Shoulders, Knees, and Toes".

This is why I came! I came to Italy to learn about their culture and their form of education. So far it has all went wonderful. Tomorrow we will be going to the University of Aosta. I am curious to know how their University works.