Finishing touches

The grade six students have been doing the finishing touches to their games this morning whilst the grade fives were at swimming. Today a lot of proofreading was done and final illustrations. Board games and rules will be laminated Monday morning. Students also played each others games. Two of the girls are still trying to think of a catchy title for their game.

Rampaging Romans

Here is a sneak preview at yet another engaging game made by a grade five student who has obviously done his research. He has worked hard on making up an explicit rules page. The game has many original, hand-drawn designs. This game should prove a lot of fun for its participants. It focuses mainly on Ancient Rome. Check out the playing tokens.

The Rialto

Okay, here it is... Venezia! What great team work! The four students involved in this segment of the project read a picture book on Venice called This is Venice by M. Sasek and looked at photos and paintings. They then designed their own backdrop of Venice to compliment the Renaissance figures. It was hard to choose which figures to put on the ledge. Can you spot the Doge? All we need now is a heading and some info and to get all those smudges off the window. The panel from Rome(Roma) is next!!! Then... maybe Florence (Firenze) and maybe Pisa!

Update on the Renaissance scene in Venice.

Meanwhile another group of students has been working hard on the backdrop(sixteenth century Venice) in the art area. This is the background mural which will go with the Renaissance figures completed by another group. Here are some photos of the group at work. You can see the work in progress. Stay tuned for the final display...coming to you soon from the double unit! Can you see the Rialto Bridge?

Some of the board games are nearing completion

Work on the Italian board games continues at a furious rate in the double unit. Grade 5s need more time due to their Learn to Swim commitments. They have been given an extension of a week. You can see one of the grade five boys preparing to paint his wooden box which will contain the game. Many of the students have put a lot of thought and time into the box which houses their game. Some of the gameboards are fantastic! One pair have created a trifold brochure to explain the rules. Some groups are trialling their games and then making some final adjustments. Here are some sneak previews of the games which younger students can come and play at the Expo.

Renaissance Figures

Hi again...Today five students worked hard on cutting out Italian Renaissance figures supplied by Candida Martinelli on her Italophiles Site: http://italophiles.com/index.htm which I have found very informative and useful for classroom ideas. There is a big selection of characters as you can see and these will make an interesting talking point at the Expo. I know a lot of the students are keen to take one home at the end of the big week. These students worked hard on the figures making them free standing which was part of the challenge. I am still waiting for one student to bring back his finished product. Tomorrow my colleague teacher, Miss Dillion, will be supervising a group who are planning a Venetian backdrop for the figures...so stay tuned for more. We hope to photograph the finished product when it is complete.

Pinocchio portraits

Now we are up to chapter fifteen in Carlo Collodi's Pinocchio and we have been doing own own interpretations of Pinocchio. Students have done works in conte, coloured pencil, oil pastels, texta and ink. Here are a few. Come and see the rest at the Italian Expo July 18-21st.

Our board games about Italy

Unit 5/6 Coote/Paton are currently working hard on producing their own board games which reflect the culture of Italy. The board games will reflect the history, geography and customs of Italy and hopefully won't contain too many stereotypes. Each game has to be creative, contain instructions, be as factually correct as possible, be attractively boxed and appropriate for a 3-6 audience. Students have been reading books, articles, magazines and travel brochures as well as watching films about Itlay. The project requires extensive research. Students recently viewed a Getaway series on Italy and a film on the life of Enzo Ferrari. They all seem to have their own unique sources as well. All the games will be on disply at the Expo and the grade 3 to grade 6 students will have the opportunity to give them a test run. Here are some photos of students planning and working on their games. Students could work individually or in pairs and have a rubric outlining the specifics of game board production.

Pinocchio

At the moment 5/6 Coote are working their way through the very famous classic The Adventures of Pinocchio and are about to create their own gallery of Pinocchio portraits giving their personal interpretation of the character. Stay tuned for more. All portraits will be on diplay at the Italian Expo to be held in the 5/6 unit from the 18th of July until the 21st. Three students have also put together a Disney portrait of Pinocchio showing the main body parts in Italian to support outr Italian language program. Students have also studied the author Carlos Collodi and have produced a flipboard focusing on his life.

To view some of the original illustrations done by Atillio Mussino go to:

http://www.illuminated-books.com/books/pinocchio.htm

This is a fascinating site and worth the visit for the illustrations alone.

La Torre Pendente Posters

In 5/6Coote-Paton unit we have been learning about the Leaning Tower of Pisa. We were each given an article about the tower. We read through the information individually highlighting what we thought to be the interesting and important points. We then worked in groups of three or four. Each member of the group had a different article. We had to "jigsaw" the information to produce a top 10 interesting facts poster and give it a catchy title. Everyone had jobs to do and two team members were in charge of publishing it. We had to work hard on the proofreading aspect. Each group then chose one or two photos to adorn their poster. As you can see some of the posters were 3D! One group even designed pullout tabs (see above photo) with the information being stored internally in a paper-sculptured tower. These are only some of the posters. They will all be on display at the Italian Expo from July 18th-21st in the double unit.