Music for Hope with the Adventures in Italy's Free Art Lesson!
We have been so inspired by all the videos out there of the Italians singing to their communities from their balconies, that we were also inspired to create a FREE Art Lesson for you all who have been learning about Italy with our Build Your Masterpiece Class Adventures in Italy Unit Studies over the last year!
I am so excited that it is ready share with you all.
Find this FREE Art Lesson >>HERE<< and begin coloring our specially designed coloring page with your kids today!
We enjoyed using this art lesson and coloring page in our homeschool, and our kids were really happy to color their own picture of the people singing to spread hope and love.
We discussed all the hot topics on our minds right now while listening to Italian Opera Music, as well as the kids favourite music, while we coloured.
This lesson plan includes Additional Learning Resources for you and your kids to enjoy, by scanning our QR Codes.
You can listen and watch the beautiful videos of the Italian families singing from their windows and balconies to give hope to their communities who are in self isolation due to this covid19 pandemic. We are also in self isolation, and being able to discuss this with the kids in this way, was really healing, and lead to open discussions that had not come up otherwise.
The lesson also includes books to read, which we have also included as read aloud links so you can watch and listen to the books with your smart phone and tablet, if you do not have access to the books due to library closures. All of our Adventures in Europe with the Build Your Masterpiece Class have this feature, for easy teaching with multiple kids at home.
And along with the coloring page, discussion questions, and music to listen to, we have also included a fun, hands-on science experiment for you and your kids to enjoy, which is all about leaning how soap interacts with the surface of the water. This was so much fun, and I was so shocked to see what would happen!
Have you ever done this with your kids?
I hope you give it a try! Let us know when you do.
It really was a great way to talk about germs, washing hands, and what soap can really do to protect us.
We have included a couple books for you to read about germs, if you would like, and you can take this lesson further in your homeschool, but it opens the door for sure!
“Hope is keeping a light on, however dark things seem.- Quote from “Hope” by Corrine Averiss”
And, our Adventures in Italy would not be complete without a traditional recipe, and I have searched, and tested this recipe for you, and I think it is lovely… Italian Chocolate Hearts!
This recipe is often made for Valentine’s Day or Weddings, and decorated with icing that looks like Venetian Lace, which we learn about in our Adventures in Italy #3 I was inspired to recreate this recipe from an old Italian Cookbook that I love, and I thought it was just perfect!
Claire was so excited to bake with me in the kitchen.
Daddy is home too, and helped set up the ingredients for success! I would defiantly recommend having your hubby come in to help set up, if you can, to bring the whole family together for this one. And, if you guys don’t prefer chocolate, you can always leave the cocoa powder out, and make them vanilla only cookies or, you can also put some food coloring in, and make them pink, or red - the options are wide open really!
Making cookies is a favorite past time for us, especially when it comes to the Italian Recipes from the Adventures in Italy, because they are so dear to my heart. They also have a uniqueness to them, which differs from the American cookies, and tend to be a little less sweet, which we really like!
Baking with kids really brings out so many moments for bonding, time to chat, and build fine motor skills with stirring, mixing, kneading as well as math skills with measuring, baking and more.
This recipe really reminded me of time spent with our Chocolate Adventures, where we learned about how Cacao is grown, with our Life Cycle of a Cacao Tree Unit Study and how it’s made and spread across Europe. That’s another amazing connection that this FREE Art Lesson provides!
Cutting out the hearts was just really special to see.
We choice to decorate them with vanilla icing, in dainty swirls like our Venetian lace! This was my favorite part, and the kids let me take over from here, but I have more for them to give it a try when they are ready. This batch provides a lot of cookies, so its great to share with family, or freeze for later.
In fact, we brought in that lesson about the Venetian Lace and coloured the coloring page too!
I’m so excited about this next FREE Art Lesson with the Adventures in Italy, and I hope you and your kids find hope with it!
Find it in our shop for free >>HERE<< and below:
Thanks for reading today, I hope you enjoy building your masterpiece, even in quarantine,
Warmly,
Alexandra
PS- Please share your Music for Hope Masterpieces with us on Instagram, and tag us, with the hashtags, #musicforhope along with our #readpaintcook and #buildyourmasterpiececlass! Let’s spread this hope and love for Italy around!