Italian School of Portland
Our Reggio Emilia inspired pre-school for children 3 to 5 years old is a cultural immersion program taught entirely in Italian.
The school is located at New Song Community Church, on NE Martin Luther King Jr. Blvd and is open on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday from 8:30am to 12:30pm. Tuition is $10 / hour ($40 / day). An annual registration fee also applies.
We are currently accepting registrations for the remainder of the winter term, 2010 (January - March) and for the spring term (April - June). Fall registration is also open, and there is a waiting list for winter, spring and fall 2011.
Space is limited to 5 children.
For more information, please EMAIL us.
The program consists of different projects, which is a flexible planning style encouraging our students to learn in a multilevel and multimodal way, including content-based Italian classes.
How is the natural world changing each season? We discover how the natural world is changing through direct observations and taking pictures of these changes, then registering each change with drawings and notes.
"Making Art" is a spontaneous way for a child to express himself and communicate his/her own personal experience to other people. With this project the children will find the way to express themselves through a different communicative language: visual literacy.
The meeting between American and Italian cultures in our classroom presents an opportunity for an authentic diversity experience which will permit the students to focus their attention on other realities, both near and far from them. We will teach our students about the most important Italian festivals, using constructive methods including short interactive stories, dance, folkloric music, and songs.
"Stories - said C. Lewis - are like a gift of love, they do not ask anything in return". Children love to listen to the voice of an adult that is reading a story. We will use Italian childhood literature to help the students build an affectionate relationship with the Italian language.
Counting, lullabies, limericks, a little poetry in rhyme and children’s songs will be part of our musical project. The perception of rhythm and the musical sounds- the melody of a foreign language, helps students to feel comfortable with a new language.
Movement games are important to build a positive relationship between the body and a language. These games not only reinforce the target language, but are also useful for the development of his/her personality. One of our objectives will be to create a comfortable learning environment, where the children can feel trust and happiness, therefore lowering their affective filters and allowing them to express themselves in a natural and spontaneous way.
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