Entry 3: July 21, 2011

Our time in Sansepolcro has almost come to an end. We spent last weekend in Rome, which was absolutely fabulous. We are able to see the Trevi fountain, tour the Vatican museums, visit St. Peter’s Basilica, and tour the Colosseum. It was an extremely productive weekend. We also managed to get in some shopping between all of our sight-seeing. We had one adventure on the way to Rome. We got on the wrong train!  It turned out to be a blessing in disguise because we were on the “fast train”, which put us in Rome two hours earlier than we were supposed to. We had an amazing time.

For our last week in Sansepolcro, we have been taking in our last days of Italian life and attending our child development class. We are each researching another culture to compare it to Italy and the United States. I am researching Mexico, and so far there are several extremely interesting differences. It is sunflower season in Italy, so tomorrow we are going to take pictures at one of the many sunflower fields. I have thoroughly enjoyed by stay in Sansepolcro and will hopefully be back to visit in the future. Ciao!

Entry 2

It has been another eventful week in Sansepolcro. Monday and Tuesday we observed in a kindergarten and summer camp. It was so fun being able to play with the children despite the language barrier. It is really interesting to observe schools here and compare them to programs at home. I am able to find interesting ideas to bring back to my classroom. Thursday, we went to Reggio Emilia, which is known for their outstanding programs for young children in which children’s interests and questions drive the curriculum and parents are extremely involved. We were able to visit two exhibits. The first was a history of the program, which started in the 1960s. It also showed different projects the children had been working on with exact documentation of quotes from the children. The second exhibit involved investigating light, and it was so fascinating. I saw so many things I would love to do in my classroom. Reggio has always been one of my favorite approaches to early childhood education, so I was very thankful to visit these exhibits. Tomorrow we are waking up early to catch the 5:30 am bus to Rome for our travel break. It should bring many adventures!

Entry 1: July 10, 2011

What a busy week we have had in Sansepolcro!  I am so thankful to have an opportunity to spend three weeks of my summer here while furthering my knowledge of child development.  We are studying cross-cultural perspectives on children’s play.  On Sunday, we arrived at the palazzo, which is absolutely gorgeous.  After grabbing a quick pizza for dinner, we settled in to our new home for the next three weeks.  Throughout the week, we have visited several schools and talked to several teachers and parents on the Italian education system.  One school we visited in Perugia used a Montessori approach, which is used in the United States as well, but it was very interesting to examine the differences.  I have discovered several new ideas and techniques that I cannot wait to implement into my classroom. 

Although our observations and classes have been very interesting, we have had several opportunities to travel.  We visited Anghiari, a small town near Sansepolcro.  This was such a beautiful town with spectacular views.  We took so many amazing pictures.  We also visited the Busatti looms and began our Italian shopping with hand-stitched fabrics.  On Thursday night, my travel buddies (Brittany and Kelly) and I decided to master the Italian transportation system.  We purchased bus tickets and traveled to Arrezzo, which is about an hour away and where the train station is located.  We felt so great about ourselves because before this, we had no idea how to work the public transportation system, but we succeeded.  On Friday, we woke up early and our whole program traveled to Florence, which was about a two hour trip.  Florence is such a beautiful city with great shopping.  We spent the day there and we were able to hit the highlights.  Saturday brought a new adventure- traveling to Pisa.  After class, my travel buddies and I made the almost three hour trip to see the leaning tower.  We were so glad we decided to go.  We also made plans to go to Rome next weekend, and we are so excited!