Ciao a tutti, Here we are Term 3, 2014, almost another year is flying away! The suitcase of Minitalia Lab is already full of surprises, fantastic new creations and many new Italian words. So far, each trip has brought new pictures and helped us to memorise and connect objects, names, persons and places around the world we live and the one we would like to build. Practice is the secret of learning a new language, for our Mini-Explorers it is an easy connection between sounds and images. The Mini-House is the secret place where old shapes will help us to build more object, names, persons and places. The imagination of our Mini-Explorers will be stimulated through a bunch of modern artists that have been using geometric figures to picture emotions and objects of the ordinary life. The cognitive process built around our creative play will help children to incorporate old concepts and assimilate new words. Blocks, puzzles, fabric, paint, a combination of inspirational materials will lid each of you to the Mini-House and get ready for a birthday party, for a relaxing movie night on the couch with an extraordinary friend, for an incredible adventure inside the bathtub and a starry night inside a cosy little bed. Those and more adventures are ready to tell you stories about linking, building and always exploring to create a space full of joy and fun. I look forward to seeing you all this week!  

Ciao a tutti, It is not a news how much I love stories and how precious it is our story-time for me. Books it is a powerful media for our imagination and an excellent instrument to create and aknowledge. This Term 2 we have selected a big range of amazing picture books and introduce two new Mini-Storie. We have a lot more to tell next Term 3; but I would like to spend a little longer moment on “Maremè”, the beautiful book we read by Bruno Tagnolini and Antonella Abbiatiello, that you also find on the video above. This book is a poem and the harmonic picture move the pages of the book like a lullaby to discover the world we live in and find the way home… Poetic illustration that dissolve our imagination under the sea and let us swim up to reach a boat, the boat that will lid our Mini-Sailors to next adventure. The Mini-House is reserving to all our Mini-Explorers a lot of surprises, new books, new activities and always inspiring craft all created and selected from Minitalia Lab. If you wish to buy one of the Italian books in our bookshelf please email info@minitalia.com.au, we have a limited numbers of selected books to share with you. I look forward for our next adventure together!

Ciao a tutti, what I love most about my job is that I am involved in this constantly discovery that children made every day The surprise of life as a daily gift is something that children tell us most of the time. I am lucky to feel the joy they express every day and the smile they have for every single things. I feel to be on Neverland, the land of Peter Pan, all the time. Rasing a child is obviously a big job and not always so fun, be a mum is very challenging but it is so easy to forget little moments when the smile of every little one rise the sun. Second star to the right and straight until the morning, that’s the way to Neverland… Our Mini-Explorers make this journey so special and easy. This week the workshop is inspired by Vermeer and the famous painting “Girl with a Pearl Earring”, to let open our caring shell and see our precious pearls bright. I want to congratulate with my Mini-Explorers for the extraordinary job they do every day at Minitalia Lab. This little pearls are very rare in such a big ocean and it is amazing to see how they always look for a new adventure and to learn and discover something new. I am so proud of each of them, I often hear you telling me how great is their Italian and how surprising is for you to discover that they are actually learning when you listen them singing or say something in Italian. I don’t have doubt that their play is filling a big suitcase with the tools they will need to fly up one day… I also want to congratulate with all the parents because only the strongest shells raise such a beautiful pearls. Children have many way to learn and they constantly listen to us even when we think they don’t. Our activities are designed to give to the children space and let them discover every time something with fun and creativity. Early years learning is the best time for a child to develop a foundation for future success in learning. The play-based learning is the context where we let children to create and organise theirs own world. Children are all different, we are all different, there is someone louder then someone else and someone more quite then others… each of them, and each of us, is special because we all make the difference. I like to see the outcome of each workshop because they all different and there is always something new to learn even for me. Thanks a lot for sharing with us this journey, I am having a lot of fun in doing this with you. Now keep dancing, because the limbo of the Seahorse is warming us up only for a little longer, Term 3 is behind the door…  

Ciao a tutti, Here I am again after a little break from this page. I will try to replicate in a small scale the amazing adventure my Mini-Explorers and I had so far. We have started this Term 2 with an invention of the beginning of 19th centuries, the Diorama. The word literally means “through that which is seen”, from the Greek. In our little showcase we are keeping and looking at the most fascinating creatures we have met from the sea. The imaginary world under the water that we have designed is helping our Explorers to express their emotion and discover new Italian words. The enchanted story time brought this week 4 from the Mini-Shop has bewitched our beautiful children and helped them to act the story and dissolve their eyes to become part of the water to really get a sense of how water feels and what water does. Moving from the right to the left, touching the sand and liquefying ourself underwater vision is going to bring to Minitalia Lab a sensational and unique new adventure that set aside a lot of surprise.. Are you ready to dance the limbo of the Seahorse next week? The fun is just begun…  

Ciao a tutti, I hope you all had a good Easter. The beginning of Term 2 is for me the beginning of the colder season here in Melbourne. We have closed our first Term with the beautiful painting of George Seurant, that frame a beautiful spring afternoon. It is known that Seurant realised this painting during the Easter. This time of the year is when Melbourne and Rome have the weather more similar even thought the light start to be less here and the sun is warmer over there. Seraunt use the technique called Pointillism which make the light of the painting to bright by the contraposition of the colour. This Term I have decided to turn on the light of winter and play with the colours of summer, the Italian summer. We are going to explore the world under the sea and we have built inspiring craft and an exciting creative play where discover a magic world and learn a lot of new Italian words and songs. My favourite season is the beginning of summer when life is alive and flowers are ready to make fruit… I am also attracted to see the changing of the season by the cold and the colour of that. I like the idea to see my Mini-Explorers engaged in this adventure that will bring alive two different reality, the two face of our world. I will keep you closer to the side of the sun and warmer you up in the side of the cold and cosy wind. I look forward to meet you all this week!