Hampshire House 

Hampshire House celebrates The Italian Carnival Festivals

What makes my heart glow? 

Over the past few weeks, it has been wonderful to promote in our Playfair yellow class a strong sense of identity and to witness the children experience pride and confidence when sharing with their peers “what makes my heart glow”. 

Inspired by their excitement, I was very proud to share with the children my own Italian culture and what makes my heart glow, by introducing them to a special joyous celebration of my culture that occurs throughout February, the Carnivale.

Everywhere around Italy at this time of year, cities organise grand festivals around the streets. People dress up in costumes to walk together, dance to the rhythm of fun music, throw confetti, and watch carnival float competitions. One of the most famous and prestigious is the Carnival of Venice.

Together we enjoyed a video of this festival and the children

demonstrated great curiosity about the different types of costumes and masks I took this opportunity to discuss the various shaped masks that are worn and intricately designed with feathers, beads, and other decorations We also explored how these hide a person’s identity.

Once we had created our masks the children were shown some of the carnival floats and parades from my hometown Asti. The children then dressed up in their own costumes and held their very own Playfair yellow parade. It is wonderful to see our children developing such confident self-identities and sharing and engaging in information sharing about their own family, diverse cultures and aspects that makes each of them unique.

The children demonstrated an interest in the gondolas, the long narrow flat-bottomed boats used on the canals of Venice, a unique characteristic of the city. Stirling asked, "Where is the road?". Mae observed "There were gondolas in Thredbo, but they were chairlifts.". The children shared their own knowledge and understandings of Masks and Gondolas and thoroughly enjoyed decorating their own masks with feathers and sequins before dressing up in bright costumes and enjoying their own parade.

Buon canevale everyone.

Ms Irene Schillaci

Co-educator Playfair Yellow class