Recently, for our Five in a Row Studies, we read Papa Piccolo by Carol Talley. The story takes place in Venice, Italy and highlights all the canals and boats that travel through the city, especially the gondola.
Nadia kept getting the word gondola and the word canal confused. Every time I asked her what a canal was she would tell me a type of boat. After 3 days of this we decided to make some gondolas.
Start with a sheet of black construction paper and fold it into quarters.
Start cutting along the double folded side forming a scoop that comes up on the open side.
Now when you open it you have a giant, capital "I".
Fold your "I" lengthwise Glue the very ends and then decorate however you wish!
I printed out some tiny cats for them to color, so they could have their own version of Marco, Polo, and Papa Piccolo too.
The gondolas were ready for a regatta, and now she could remember the difference.
We didn't have many hands on projects with this book other then painting with water colors and making gondolas, but the girls really enjoyed the story! I think Triscuit did too!
