Christmas in Italy

Christmas School–Day Five

Buon Natale!

Today we learned about Christmas in Italy. The timing for this was excellent as we’re going on a field trip tomorrow that is related to Christmas in Italy (more on that later). We studied Nativity scenes (Turkey and Bunny thought it was cool that in Italy, Jesus isn’t placed in the manger until Christmas Eve), traditions related to gift-giving (very little Santa, mostly La Befana), special foods (Pizzelles–yum!) and more.

Our main focus of the day was reading the story of “Befana and the Three Wise Men” in The Kingfisher Book of Classic Christmas Stories. I have to admit, this is one of the stranger Christmas legends (a “witch” chooses not to go with the Wise Men in search of the new King, but later regrets it, and tries to find them, but because she’s unsuccessful, is still searching, and leaving gifts at the homes of all children, just in case), but it does get across the point that we should never be too busy for Jesus. We’ll also be encountering La Befana at least twice this Christmas season (possibly both of them this weekend) so it’s good to be familiar with the story.

As we read the La Befana story, Turkey and Bunny re-enacted it with the stick puppets we made today. They had the whole cast of the story–Befana, the three kings, the star of Bethlehem, even the gifts Befana leaves on Epiphany. I found the patterns for them in Celebrate Christmas Around the World. This is one of the best books I have purchased for use in school. There is information on Christmas celebrations in over 20 countries, along with craft activities, games, and recipes. I have used this book every year that we’ve had Christmas school, and I haven’t come close to using everything in it.

Buon Natale!

Merry Christmas from Italy!  (Or at least the Italian sector of our house…)  We had a great time learning about Italian Christmas traditions today.  We started with basic geography–where Italy is on the map, what it’s shaped like (Turkey and Bunny were very amused to realize it looks like a boot!), and what that type of land is called (a peninsula).  Turkey also pointed out, with no prompting, that Florida is also a peninsula–proud Mommy moment for that one!

We read two stories from the Lion Storyteller Christmas Book–the first was about Saint Francis and the first Christmas pageant.  This led to a discussion about the use of nativity scenes in homes in both Italy and America. We then made a foam nativity scene from a kit I picked up at Michael’s.  It will be a cold day when I get another one of those things, but the end result was pretty cute, and Turkey and Bunny enjoyed helping me put it together (they didn’t get to help as much as I had hoped, because I had to get out the hot glue gun, so they had to back off, lest they burn themselves like I did, several times no less!).

We had two different Italy coloring sheets, too.  One, from our Christmas Around the World coloring book, was of a living nativity, much like the one Saint Francis put together in our story.  The other picture (of La Befana) was actually from a coloring book we picked up at our Christmas field trip over the weekend.  Our second story was about the legend of La Befana, so the two fit together nicely.  Using that story as a bit of a springboard, we also talked a little about the wise men, and listened to the hymn, “What Child is This?”

Our big “taste” of Italy, though, was our dinner tonight.  I decided to be adventurous and try out a recipe for  Zuppa Toscana I found online.  It was quite a bit of work to put together, but it was really delicious, and Turkey and Bunny both enjoyed sampling food from Italy.

We will continue our trip around the world on Monday…until then, Buon Natale!