Blood oranges

Mamma mia! Oranges that have red juice!
Ciao Tutti
In the Upper School the students are learning all about Italy and especially the north of Italy. We watched a DVD about an unusual festival. The townspeople had a festival in which teams of people threw oranges at each other. The oranges were blood oranges from Sicilia. We showed the children a blood orange. Mamma Mia! It was rosso instead of arancione. Toby said that he buys Aranciata Rossa (Blood Orange) drink at a cafe at Doreen.

A presto! (see you soon)

Signora Nac
Signora Di Sera

Learning Italian is fantastico!!!!

A photo from Barcelona. Signora Nac fell in love with the city and especially the amazing buildings designed by Gaudi. She also discovered the Spanish way of eating many delicious tapas.

Hola! (Ciao in Spanish)

Throughout the year we have aimed to expose the children not only to the Italian language, but languages in general. We have used the travel experiences of our students and staff to highlight the need for our children to be bilingual in a modern world. By learning the basic structure of the Italian language, children can then apply this to the other Latin based languages such as French and Spanish. As Signora Nac found in her recent travels to Spain and Portugal, Italian was very useful. We also keep reminding our students that children in other parts of the world have a first language and learn a second and third language.

MEAL TIMES

In the Middle School we were discussing types of food and when it would be eaten.

la colazione breakfast
la merenda snack
il pranzo lunch
la cena dinner

The children placed the foods they would eat within each meal time.
We compared this to other cultures. In Japan "il pesce" is eaten at all meal times. I spent nearly a week in Japan recently and I had "il pesce" per colazione!

Mamma mia!

BUON APPETITO!
SIGNORA NAC

GRAMMAR IN ITALIAN

GENDER OF NOUNS
All nouns in Italian are either masculine or feminine. (Ask an Upper School student to tell you more.)

Are there any other languages where nouns are masculine or feminine?
Most singular nouns ending in -0 are masculine.
Most singular nouns ending in -a are feminine.

MASCULINE
libro book
giorno day
ragazzo boy

FEMININE
zia aunty
penna pen
matita pencil

In English the definite article THE can be used before all nouns. But in Italian the definite article has more than one form.

THE can be:
il, lo, l', la

MAMMA MIA!

Italian really makes our students think about how languages work.

PARLO ITALIANO SCOUT BADGE

LOTE NEWS
One of our Upper School students Matthew Fraser is a scout. Last week he attempted to get his Parlo Italiano badge. To be successful he had to write a one hundred word essay, translate a passage, and have a simple conversation for ten minutes. Matthew prepared for this by himself using his Italian book. It was with great pride that Matthew told us he passed the test and got his badge. We were also so proud of him. We think Matthew will truly be a future citizen of a world where bilingualism is the norm. BRAVO MATTHEW!!!!!!!!

SIGNORA NAC AND SIGNORA DI SERA

OOPS!!! A Magpie!

Accidenti!!!!!!!
Mamma mia!!!!!!!

Perbacco!!!!!!!!!

What's a magpie doing on the LOTE blog?

ciao Signora Nac

Venice
Did you know some of our students have been to Venice? Isabella and Chloe have returned to our school. While they were away they visited Venice. Isabella told me her parents paid a lot of money to go on a gondola. Gemma, Connor, and Koby have been to Venice too.

When I went to Venice I realised that everything had to travel on the canals. This is a photo I took of the Italian police in a police boat. I have also seen the rubbish truck/boat, the coca cola boat, and the ambulance boat. Amazing!

Where are our students travelling to?
Mika is going to America. So is Nikki. I am going to Spain and Greece soon. Where have you been recently? Have you learnt any words in another language? I am learning a bit of Greek. Maybe Melissa and Daniel can help me with my Greek.

Ciao Signora Nac