Arrivederci, Italy!

Ciao, P2D2!

It is I, Lego Man!

Yesterday, we had a little problem with our computer. Ginny was putting pictures onto it, and accidentally made it go "kabloop". It stayed asleep for a very long time. Thankfully, we have fixed this problem--but don't want to risk putting too many pictures up today. We have so many to show you when we come home, on Monday! Are you all looking forward to your home days? What will you be doing?

Hmm. What news do we have? Ginny and I bought something called a Florence Card. This is a pass that lets you go to as many museums in the city as you like; Florence has just invented it, just about two months ago, and it is a wonderful idea. Especially because, without one, you can end up standing in line for some of the museums longer than most of you have ever waited in line at an amusement park. (Really. Some of the lines here are pretty crazy.) We've been trying to make the most of our Florence card...today, in fact, we're going to the Uffizi, which is one of the world's loveliest and biggest museums.

Yesterday, we went to Dante's house. Have any of you ever heard that name before? Dante was a writer, who was born and worked in Florence, and he wrote one of the world's longest and most complicated books--called The Divine Comedy. It's a series of books, actually; they are all connected and related to one another, not unlike Star Wars. (Minus ewoks. There are a lot of differences between Star Wars and the Divine Comedy, actually. They're just both examples of very long and complex stories.) The Divine Comedy is often called the cornerstone of the Italian language. Uh oh...Ginny is yelling across the room, yet again. She says to be sure to tell you that "cornerstone of the Italian language" is just a fancypants way of saying "it was really important for Italian language". The Divine Comedy isn't just important for the Italians or Italy, though; it's often called one of the most important fiction books ever published, and has been translated into just about every language.

Do you guys remember the difference between fiction and nonfiction? Lego Man knows he already asked you about this, but just wants a refresher. The difference between fiction and nonfiction is an important thing to think about, if you read The Divine Comedy as a grown up, because Dante used many things that were really and truly happening around him--in Florence--to ask the reader important questions about politics, religion, books, and (ah, Lego Man's little heart flutters!) love. One of the things that many people know about the Divine Comedy is that Dante talks often about a beautiful lady he met, named Beatrice, and how he fell in love with her at first sight...because she just seemed like a nice person. In Italian, the term for "love at first sight" is "il colpo di fulmine". Or "the thunderbolt". This means you fall so in love with something, it feels a little bit like you're being zapped by lightening. Lego Man once felt this way about a particularly awesome Star Wars spacecraft he once saw...have any of you fallen in love at first sight with something? Maybe a place, or something you just really felt was nifty? Kapow! That's the thunderbolt. (Or "that's amore". I heard you guys know that song, and can sing it!)

Anyway. Here are some blurry pictures of Dante's little bed, as well as the desk where he wrote. Ginny likes to write (and says that many of you are wonderful storytellers who have written your own books!) so she was very excited to see this.

Here are also some pictures of sidewalk artists doing chalk drawings. I hear some of you really love to draw with chalk...do you know where chalk comes from?

The final picture we're going to post, before we close this blog out for good, is of a horse in the Piazza Del Duomo. Ginny says that lots of you love horses; we've seen lots and lots of horse-drawn carriages go through the center of town. One rode past us this morning that had a funny little purple cap for its ears; it was moving too quickly for us to take a picture.

Please tell Jennifer, Bridget, Jessica, Maura and Liana that we say hello--and to have a wonderful weekend. We're flying back tomorrow morning, so we'll be ready to see you first thing on Monday morning. Ginny would like lots of hugs from you all, because she's missed you guys to bits! I cannot wait to meet you; please be gentle with me, though, because I have recently dislocated my arm in all my travels. Also, just to warn you, I can sometimes be very quiet in person.

Give Mr. Nobody our love (has anybody found him yet?)...and arrivederci! We'll see you soon!

Love,

LEGO MAN (and Ginny)

No, David!

Greetings, P2D2!

It is I, Lego Man. My tiny feet are very tired; Ginny and I have been walking all over the place.

We're very sorry, again, for our limited Internet access. How are you guys? What are you exploring this week?

The past few days have been very busy, and we've seen so much--but two of the things Ginny thinks you might want to hear about were our trips to the Galileo Museum, and to see a sculpture called The David.

The Galileo Museum was wonderful; we saw all kinds of tools that Galileo and other scientists used when they were exploring some of science's basic principles. We saw old-fashioned telescopes covered in beautiful marbleized paper, some of which were almost as long as the Preschool 2 classroom--and we saw a large room of very old, enormous globes that Ginny loved. Do any of you have a globe at home?

In Preschool Two, you've talked a little bit about maps in the past...but you've never talked much about globes; globes are another 3-D way of displaying the map of our entire planet, and sometimes globes even have small bumps to show you where the land rises very high--in particularly large mountain ranges, for example. In Galileo's time, about four centuries ago, globes were made by taking a gigantic wooden sphere and then applying papiér mâché to it. After the papiér mâché had dried, an artist would work on carefully applying the map itself. Do any of you remember making all those papiér mâché piñatas earlier in the fall? Ginny tells me that some of you are serious sluggers, when it comes to cracking open a piñata.

Something very unusual about the Galileo Museum is that, along with all of the beautiful old scientific equipment, they have a display of Galileo's finger...and one of his teeth. The finger and the tooth are kept in glass; Lego Man feels that this is both totally disgusting and totally awesome all at once. Galileo's finger, in case you are wondering, really does look like it's about 400 years old. Yucko.

After the Galileo Museum, Ginny and I did a lot of exploring. Towards the end of the day, though, we went to another museum called the Accademia. This museum is one of Florence's most famous (and, ugh, most crowded) places, because it houses a sculpture called The David. Ginny says that Henry and a couple of other Preschool 2 friends might be able to tell you something about The David; many of you would probably recognize this statue if you saw it.

The David was carved by a man named Michelangelo; Michelangelo is responsible for so many beautiful things in Florence, but this one is well known because it is absolutely enormous. Ginny tells me that you all absolutely adore the No, David! books, and that you can recite most of them by heart. Does this fellow look anything like your beloved David?

The David is 17 feet tall. (Which is even longer than your shoes were that time that we took all of our shoes off and lined them up to see how big an apple tree typically is.) The simplest way of explaining this is that it started out as a gigantic slab of marble (from Carrara, which is in the north of Italy) that some people were working on, but then they changed their minds and just let it sit. Many artists wanted to take the slab and create a beautiful sculpture of David; David was part of a tall tale that many people knew well. (People often said that he had conquered a mean old giant using only a tiny slingshot and his cunning. That basically means he used his noodle, and didn't really want to hurt the giant or be violent.) There was a competition to see who might be best suited to work on the giant marble slab, and Michelangelo won...even though he was only 26 at the time. That might seem very old to you, but it's young for an artist. Michelangelo worked on The David for two years. Can you imagine working on something at the project table for two whole years? That would be like starting something in the Toddler 2 room, working on it every single day (instead of playing or having story time) and then finishing it at the very end of P2. Crazy! Actually, many of the masterpieces in Florence took much more than two years to create. There is a set of fancy doors here, on the local baptistry, that took one artist forty years to complete.

The David used to sit outdoors, in the Piazza Della Signoria (one of Florence's main squares, which is filled with nothing but beautiful sculptures...it's one of Ginny's favorite places to walk around) but he had to be moved several hundred years ago. There was one spring in Florence where it rained, rained, and then rained some more--David didn't have galoshes, or anything to protect him properly from the nasty weather. The statue of David was so important to the people of Florence, and so well loved, that they wanted to move him indoors to help him remain wicked handsome. So they moved him, from the Piazza Della Signoria, into the museum that Ginny and I visited today. He now sits indoors, in a quiet but sunny rotunda, and is perpetually surrounded by hundreds of tourists. The funny thing is, the people of Florence missed having David outside so much that they made a smaller imitation of his sculpture--and put it in the same spot, outdoors, where it used to sit. You can still see the copy-cat David; he sits in the Piazza Della Signoria, just beneath the Palazzo Vecchio, which used to be like Florence's town hall. There's even a THIRD copy-cat David that someone put in the Piazalle Michelangelo, a lovely little park that sits very high above the city. Ginny and I marched up there to watch the sun set earlier today...it's so funny to think that the sun set hours ago here, and you're just waking up from nap time!

There's a legend about the copy-cat David who sits in the Piazza Della Signoria; people say that on the night of a full moon, the copy-cat David jumps down off of his pedestal and walks around the town square, saying hello to people. (Everyone who tells this story says that David is very friendly. Tall. But mostly friendly.) Do you think that's true? Lego Man thinks that might be just another tall tale, but so what. There was a full moon the other night, in Florence; Ginny and I happened to be in the Piazza Della Signoria. She and I both know about the legend; the statue was standing completely still, but she started whispering to it. I thought I heard her saying: "I'd like a hamburger and french fries". (She tells me that the nap room children in Preschool 2 often pretend the wall doorstop is a drive-through window at a donut shop. Is this true? How awesome! And creative.) Do you think that David heard her? Do you think that he replied?

I'm thinking "probably not". But, then again, I have always been a glass half-empty sort of Lego Man.

Arrivederci! Ginny misses you, and I can't wait to meet you! (Soon!)

Love,

LEGO MAN (and Ginny)

ps: Sorry we don't have more photos from today. The museums wouldn't let us take photographs.

The Duomo

Greetings, P2D2!

            It is I, Lego Man!

           

             Today, Ginny and I arrived in Florence, the second part of our trip. Florence is a large city that's not very far away from Reggio Emilia. It takes about two hours, by train. (Unless you take an express train, which is what we did. Ginny was very impatient to get here.) Italian trains are fast, and usually pretty crowded. Florence is a very, very old city. It is Ginny’s favorite place in the world, apart from Boston. She used to live here, in fact, so she sort of knows her way around. Lego Man has never seen this before, though. It is really something.

            Florence is known for having been a place of great thinkers, scientists, artists and inventors during something called the Renaissance. Renaissance is another way of saying “a rebirth”. And a “rebirth” is basically another way of saying “trying something for the second time, and doing an even better job than you did the first time around”. The Renaissance happened a really long time ago (after the dinosaurs, but hundreds of years before your grandparents and great-grandparents were born) and it was a pretty exciting time to be anywhere in Europe. But especially in Florence. Lots of great thinkers were working in Florence at the same time, and were able to work together—and share their ideas—which is part of why the city is so beautiful. (Ginny is hollering something, from across the room, about how this is why P2 teachers are always telling you to work together and cooperate, because two heads can often be better than one.)

            A lot of the time, especially with artists, there was a patron (or a very rich person) who would ask an artist to make them a beautiful piece of art, or even a building. The patron would talk to the artist, and would pay the artist to work very hard at creating something for them. The patron was the person with all the money. (Boring) While the artist was the person who could actually think of a way to make something beautiful. (Not boring!)  Your favorite Ninja Turtles are actually named after some of Florence’s greatest Renaissance artists—Michelangelo, Leonardo, Raffaello and Donatello were all artists who lived and worked in this city. Also, they weren’t turtles. Or ninjas. They were just men. But they probably did love pizza.

            One of the biggest pieces of artwork in Florence is something called the Duomo, which is the largest things that you can see on Florence’s skyline. You know what the Boston skyline, and skyscrapers look like? Can you think of some of the buildings that you really notice?  The John Hancock Tower and the Prudential Tower are two of the buildings that might really stand out, because they’re so tall. But those are made with steel and glass, and were built when your mommies and daddies were all still just babies. The Duomo looks nothing like a modern skyscraper, and it wasn’t built with steel or glass; it’s made mostly out of wood, brick, and stone--and it was built about 600 years ago. The first version of it that was built actually fell down. You know how sad you all feel when one of your wonderful block structures comes apart? It was like that—only so, so much worse for the people living in Florence. The second Duomo is the tallest building in Florence; Florence has no skyscrapers, and most of the buildings in central Florence are as old as the Duomo. The Duomo is one of the trickiest things that has ever been built, on this planet. (No, Lego Man is not kidding.) Look at the shape of it…how do you think you might build something that’s shaped like an egg? Do you have any good guesses?

            Lots of artists and architects wanted to build the new Duomo, after the first one collapsed. There was even a contest to see who could come up with the best plan for how to build it…because building something that’s shaped like an egg is almost impossible. It topples very quickly. Try to imagine building something like that in the block area!

            The man who eventually came up with the best idea was a goldsmith and a clockmaker named Filippo Brunelleschi. He used brick, mortar, marble, chains, stone beams, and some very complicated long wooden bits as his building materials. The design that he eventually came up with was two circle-shaped masonry shells, stacked on top of one another, that grow smaller and smaller as you move towards the tippy top of the dome. Imagine two of the hula hoops in the Activity Room placed so that they overlap, then stack two more smaller overlapping Activity Room hula hoops on top of them…and you’ve got the basic idea. (Sort of. Lego Man is explaining this quite poorly.)

            When the big masonry circles were in place, they made a criss-crossed sort of pattern, which Brunelleschi filled in with some light bricks to keep the very top of the dome—the trickiest part—from caving in.

            Back in the 1400’s, they didn’t have the same kinds of cement mixers and cranes that we use now for big construction jobs…or even any of those Caterpillars that you guys love so much. Since he didn’t have too many choices, Brunelleschi had to invent a strange sort of a boat, with some pulleys, for lifting and lowering some of the marble and brick up from the ground to the top of the dome as he worked. He also invented a new hoist, with a tricky reverse gear, to use as his own kind of crane. It was so ugly that people called it Il Badalone…which means The Monster, in Italian.

            Ginny and I climbed to the top of the Duomo, after we walked around the ground floor for a long time. There are so many stairs; I had to ask her to carry me, because my legs are just way too short. It takes a long time to climb, and I started crying because I was so tired. She probably felt bad for me. When we got to the top of the dome, we could see the entire city from the top…along with the big river, the Arno, that curls through the center of the city.

            Can any of you make a monster at the writing table today? Or your own masterpiece in the block corner?

            Arrivederci!

            LEGO MAN (and Ginny)

Say "Formaggio"!

Greetings, P2D2!

It is I, Lego Man!

Once again, Ginny and I have been vexed by our Internet connection. But we are thinking of you, and hope that you're having a great time. What are you guys working on this week? Have you been measuring anything in the classroom? Have any of you tried to measure yourselves again?

Today has been very busy; we have been in a big auditorium, looking at some beautiful drawings that Italian children did of monsters--and a gigantic machine they dreamed up that whirls people through a vortex that turns people into whatever they wish for most strongly, in their heart of hearts. (How nifty is that?) If you jumped into their imaginary machine, what are some things that you might become?

Yesterday, before we started looking at monster drawings, Ginny and I got to take a bus into the countryside to tour a cheese factory. In case you are wondering, which you probably aren't, an authentic cheese factory is nothing (repeat: nothing!) like a Chuck E. Cheese factory. It is very beautiful, but there is no ball pit.

We were in the region of Parma, which is where all very yummy (and authentic) Parmegian cheese comes from. We're going to post some of the photos so that you can see a few of the steps in the process--it takes 600 (yes, really!) litres of milk just to make one of the gigantic rounds of cheese that you'll see. There are also over 600 (the magic number) cheese factories in the Parma-Reggio region, as well as about 300 balsamic vinegar factories. Lego Man felt very small compared to the enormous stacks of cheese rounds, as you will see; can any of you guess how tall the cases that the cheese is kept upon might be? Can you guess how many unit cubes it might take to equal the height of the shelves? What about long blocks? How many P2 kids do you think it might take? Lego Man's tentative guess is "a lot".


Arrivederci for now! We miss you and hope you're having fun!

Love,

LEGO MAN (and Ginny)

ps: the last picture is of Lego Man meeting some stuffies and lovies from Scotland, who were also traveling with preschool teachers. They took photos of Lego Man, too, to show their students in Scotland.

pps: Ginny is asking me to tell you that she sat with some teachers from Turkey at dinner last night. One of you was asking about whether Italian soccer teams were doing better than Turkish teams or not; the teachers told Ginny that right now (this year) the Turkish teams are a little stronger.

Pizza Deliciosa

Greetings, P2D2!

It is I, Lego Man! How are you all? Ginny says that she misses you, and that she hopes your week is off to a wonderful start.

We have been having a lovely time in Reggio Emilia so far. Yesterday, our Internet was not working, but we got to meet the mayor of the town. Do any of you know who the mayor of Boston is? Do you have any guesses about what a mayor does?

The mayor came and welcomed us to the big preschool conference, dressed up in a gigantic green, white and red flag. It turns out that the very first Italian flag was made in the town of Reggio Emilia, and this year is the birthday of the flag's creation. Just before he said goodbye to us for the day, he asked the big group of teachers we're working with to stand up for a snapshot, waving tiny Italian flags...it was really nifty, because there are teachers from over thirty countries here, and there are almost four hundred people in total.  We've met teachers from all over the world, but Lego Man's favorite international teacher is an afterschool teacher named Pili from the Domenican Republic. Do any of you know where that might be? Do you think it's close to the United States, or really far away? Pili runs her own after school program and summer camp; she also really loves to play with Legos and to create beautiful art projects.

We've started visiting some of the Italian preschools, just to say hello and have a look around, but we weren't allowed to take any pictures. Their classrooms look a lot like ours in some ways, but they have some great (and very unique) ideas about fun things to do with every day things that you find in the recycle bin--or out in nature. In fact, Lego Man has a challenge for you! While Lego Man and Ginny are away, can you guys start looking for beautiful rocks and pebbles? If you don't find any, or just don't remember to look, it's not a big deal...but it would be wonderful if we could start doing some more projects with rocks. Ginny saw an awesome project today that she really wants to share with Jennifer, Bridget, Jessica and you guys when she gets home, but we need lots and lots of pretty rocks. Maybe you guys could start looking around to see if we already have any, when you're out on the playground?

Lego Man's more exciting news is that he tried one of your favorite dishes today, pizza, in a tiny restaurant. Lego Man ordered a pizza deliciosa...can you guess what that might mean, in Italian? Pizza Deliciosa has thin slices of green apple, mozzarella, and gorgonzola cheese on it. It was very good; I almost ate the whole thing, but then Ginny reminded me that she wanted some too. Lego Man is an excellent sharer, so we finished it together. Here are some pictures of Lego Man, and the pizza deliciosa.

Lego Man's feet are tired and he needs some new batteries. So buonanotte for now...and see you soon!


Love, LEGO MAN (and Ginny)

Lego Man Has Arrived!

Greetings, P2D2!

            It is I, Lego Man!  And I am getting sleepy…so very, very sleepy. Do you know why?

            There is a large time difference between Italy and America. When you are eating lunch, I am almost ready to go to bed for the night. Lots of you have traveled before, to see your families and grandparents who live all over the world. Do you remember there being something called a time change, when you made those trips? If not, do you remember being really sleepy for the first few days? This is sometimes called jet lag. It just means that your body is getting used to doing things at a much different time of the day.

            Lego Man deeply values his beauty sleep (it is so hard to maintain this mustard-hued complexion!) therefore Lego Man has been napping a lot. Ginny is not as sleepy as I am, and is really excited to be here, so she has left me in the hotel to rest while she goes out to explore the area around Reggio Emilia. I think she drinks entirely too much coffee. (And there is an awful lot of coffee in this country.)

            Earlier today, one of the first places she decided to go to was a giornalaio, a newsstand, so that she could buy the day’s newspaper. After that, she went to a paninoteca ambulante to buy a hot sandwich. (Paninoteca ambulante means a sandwich bar on wheels. It’s a food cart, basically.) Have any of you ever tasted a panino before? Panini are a type of simple Italian sandwich; they are very popular, even in America, and are almost never alike. Ginny got a pomodoro, which is kind of like a grilled cheese…except with basil, olive oil, tomato and mozzarella. I hear you are all gourmet cooks, and that fresh basil is one of your very favorite secret ingredients—along with paprika and cinnamon. Panini are very delicious, in Lego Man’s humble opinion. You can put pretty much anything, apart from a hippopotamus, onto panini bread and it will taste delicious.

            After Ginny ate at the paninoteca, she went to a gelateria. Do you know what gelato is? It is Italian ice cream, and it is also one of Lego Man’s favorite things. (Ginny made sure to bring Lego Man back a small cone of his own.) Gelato tastes different than regular ice cream. Can you guess why? There is one big difference between the ingredients for ice cream and gelato. Ice cream uses cream and milk. Gelato does not; gelato uses lots of egg yolks, as well as custard. Do you remember some of the investigations we did about eggs last month—and the day that we cracked open the eggs from the supermarket, and compared them to the eggs that had come from Martha’s Bantam hens? Do you remember our taste test, after we cooked a store egg and a Martha egg? So can you imagine what a cup of gelato, mixed up with fresh egg yolks, might taste like? It is so good. Gelato uses a lot of egg yolk as well as fresh fruit, and it’s a bit less sugary than ice cream. Gelaterias are all over the place in Italy, and gelato really does not cost very much. The cases are always a rainbow of color choices, and there are often complicated flavors; some gelato chefs think of their work as an art, and they create flavor combinations you might not think of—like honeydew melon mixed with raspberry and mint. Or honey, chocolate and lilac. Sometimes, walking into a gelateria feels a bit like walking into Mr. Wonka’s workshop. You kind of have to see it and taste it to believe it.

            Hey, have you guys finished Charlie and The Chocolate Factory yet? I heard about your secret plans to make a little Augustus Gloop out of Popsicle sticks and paper, and then stuff him into the tubes at the cocoa lake in the water table…that is AWESOME.

            Today is Sunday, so the preschools aren’t open yet. After Ginny and some new friends did lots and lots of walking around, they took a bus into the hills surrounding the town—so that they could have lunch and see a balsamic vinegar factory. You might remember the word vinegar from when we set off some baking soda volcanoes in the water table. Balsamic vinegar is actually much different from white vinegar, which is the kind that was used for your volcanoes. Both types of vinegar are usually Italian, but balsamic can sometimes be sweet…whereas white is almost always sour, sometimes even used for cleaning or bleaching. (Do you remember talking about your taste buds, and how taste buds develop? A spoonful of white vinegar would make you all make a sour face.)  Balsamic is used for cooking, and is often aged for years upon years…not just mixed up in some giant factory vat, the way that white is. Some balsamic vinegar are mixed up in giant factory vats, but they’re not especially good.

      The factory that Ginny and Lego Man toured today is one where the vinegar is allowed to sit and ferment for years after years…and is stored in little wooden barrels (or “casks”) so that the vinegar can absorb some of the flavor from the wood of the tree that was made to use the cask. This vinegar factory likes to use casks made out of cherry wood, chestnut wood, juniper wood and oak wood. The factory owners also told us that if you’re going to cook with high quality (that means good, old and generally awesome) balsamic vinaigrette, it’s VERY important not to cook with high quality olive oil. (Lego Man hears that you use lots of olive oil in your cooking projects. Delicious. Olive oil is one of Lego Man’s other favorite-est things.) You either want to cook mixing a very old balsamic with some not-so-old olive oil, or you want to cook mixing some not-so-old balsamic with some very old olive oil. Both olive oil and balsamic vinaigrette are usually stored in a dark place with a raised roof, while they age, which lets them soak up the heat in the summer—and the cold in the winter.

            We’ll start visiting the preschools tomorrow. Lego Man and Ginny aren’t allowed to take photographs inside of the preschool, but we will try to draw you pictures of anything interesting that we might see. I don’t know how much time we will have to write you, because the days at the preschool are supposed to be pretty busy and long. But we’re really going to try.

            As an extra, here are some photographs of stone lions that we passed in one of the town’s big squares. The children of Reggio Emilia love these lions so much that they’ve written stories and drawn pictures about them; they like to climb on the lions, sometimes pretending to ride on them. Also, here’s a picture of the playground just next to the hotel where Ginny and I are staying; there’s a little train that children can ride without a grownup’s help. How cool is that?

                        Arrivederci!

                        Love,

                        LEGO MAN (and Ginny)

Planes, Trains and Matchbox Cars

Greetings, P2D2!

            It is I, Lego Man!

            Ginny and I have packed our bags and are waiting at Logan, Boston’s very big airport, for the airplane to let us on. Most of you have been here before, at some point or another. One of your daddies is even a pilot at Logan. We will be up in the air very soon…what do you think they will give me for my snack, since my mouth is only painted on?  It better be something tastier than batteries; I get dry mouth.  

            So, I’ve never been to P2 before. But Ginny has told me all about you…and how smart, kind and funny you all are. She will miss you all so much. Even you, Mr. Nobody, wherever you are! But everybody takes trips now and then. I am very excited to come and visit your classroom, once our big trip to Italy is over. Up until now, I have only ever lived in Ginny’s house, on top of the fridge. I am her absolute favorite toy. She plays with me, sometimes, but mostly uses me when her power goes out during gigantic thunderstorms because my feet light up when you press my stomach. Behold! I am, in fact, a giant flashlight.

            Ginny told me that you were all learning Italian for your language of the month, in March. You can count to ten in Italian? You can say “Ciao”? You can say “Come stai”? You know what “Benone” means, and you know to say it loudly and cheerfully? You always remember to say “grazie” and “prego”, because you have such great manners? My goodness! She has also told me that you know how to do Italian push ups. Well, I know how to do push ups too, just not Italian ones. Okay. Fine. I’m a Lego. I don’t really know how to do any push ups the right way, because I don’t have muscles. But I really WANT muscles.

            Can you drop and give Lego Man dieci?

            You guys already, obviously, know lots about Italy. But Ginny and I want to tell you a few new things, as we take our big trip, and show you some pictures…so that you can pretend to come along, too. Italy is, as you know, the home of lots of pasta and pizza…and, one of your very favorite sports, soccer. Do you remember how you and Ginny looked at a map of Italy and talked about how some people say that the country shaped like a tall boot kicking that little island at the bottom, Sicily, like a soccer ball? Italy, like a lot of countries, takes its soccer pretty darn seriously.

           

            Italy is also home to many of the world’s most beautiful works of art and buildings; it’s a country that has a very interesting history, because it’s been around for so long and has seen so many changes over the years. Some very important scientists, mathematicians, inventors, artists, writers, poets and astronomers have all come from Italy. (I heard you guys recently built some WICKED awesome telescopes at the project table! Telescopes were invented in Italy…does anyone remember who invented them?) The land itself is quite lovely; Italy has lots of dark green plants, bright and strong sunlight, and they take awfully good care of their gardens. Many of the towns here look like the illustrations in one of your favorite picture books, Strega Nona, because they have red-shingled rooftops, and at least one central piazza. Piazza is another word for a town square. The first place that Ginny and I are going to visit may look a lot like the pictures in Strega Nona, but we are probably not going to meet Big Anthony. (If we do, we will be sure to offer him some Alka Seltzer for his poor tummy.) The first place we are visiting is a teeny tiny town called Reggio Emilia. Reggio Emilia is in the north of Italy, the top of the boot, which is the same part of Italy where you can find the Leaning Tower of Pisa…that tower we talked about during our egg drop experiments. Do you remember how we talked about Galileo dropping eggs and feathers and cannonballs off of a very tall tower, which most of you had already seen pictures of? I heard you guys threw a bowling ball off the loft during your egg experiments…is that true, or is Ginny only teasing me? She seemed serious; how did you drop a bowling ball and avoid cracking the floor?

            Anyway. Reggio Emilia has some really great preschools, full of kids exactly like you, and we are going to visit those preschools. The kids in Reggio Emilia love to play and be silly with their friends, just like you. They love to build towers and boats and stables and spaceshuttles in the block area, just like you. They love to paint, they love to sculpt with clay, and they love to come up with beautiful creations using the recycle closet every day, just like you. They love to plant seeds and watch them grow, just like you. They love to pretend to be wild animals, sailors, Vikings, Boston Harbor Rescue Squad teams…and characters from their favorite movies and stories, just like you. They love to do big floor puzzles, or curl up in the reading area with a great picture book about dragons, just like you. They love to write books, just like you. They love to get REALLY messy at the sensory stations, just like you. (Lego Man also loves to get REALLY messy; we have so much in common!) They love to cook all the time, just like you. They love to make their own rock bands and to throw concerts, just like you… sometimes with backstage passes, just like you. They love to do science experiments, just like you. They love to listen to stories and chapter books, just like you. They even love Star Wars, just like you! (Do you think they know how to make Yoda Soda?) So…what’s the only difference between you and them? Well, they speak a different language. That’s about it. How many of you already speak a different language at home? I hear that, just in your classroom, you have kids who speak Hebrew, Russian, German, Ukranian, Greek, Turkish, Vietnamese, French, Spanish and Bengali at home. Plus, you ALL speak English and know a lot of American Sign Language. 

            Anyway. Ginny and I are going to visit Reggio Emilia to get some new ideas about how to make our classroom even more fun for you. We want to make the P2 classroom look more beautiful than it already is, because the rooms in Reggio Emilia are supposed to be really snazzy. Snazzy is another way of saying awesome. We also want to see some of their snazzy projects and their snazzy investigations.

            Phew. Lego Man is tired. Jumping from key to key on this laptop is hard work, for someone with no muscles. Also, Ginny is telling me that I look ridiculous.

            We’ll write again as soon as we can, but the plane is leaving pretty soon. Here is a new Italian word for you: arrivederci! That means we’ll see you soon!

            Love, 

          LEGO MAN (and Ginny)