Art exhibit

The fourth and fofth graders of our elementary school made an art exhibit of their paintings. It was very interesting.

Family biking

Biking in the countryside: one of our favourite pastime during the weekend!

Sports meeting

Mini-basketball meeting for my son, in the town's sports hall. Young athletes, ranging from 5 to 7 years old, played small basketball matches having lots of fun!

Kindergarden

I finally remembered to bring my camera when fetching my son from school: today a picture (actually a panorama made by three pictures) of his classroom!

Celebrating the 150th birthday of Italy (I)

Tomorrow schools and offices will be closed for an extraordinary day of vacation to celebrate the 150th birthday of the Italian state. Today in many schools, children sing the national anthem and wear a little flag. I just came back from my daughter's school (a primary elementary school) where I listened to children beautifully singing and playing instruments, with the school's principal and the town's major attending the celebration.

Young woman's wishes

I noticed that when we take a walk downtown Portogruaro, my almost 8-year-old daughter likes more and more to stop in front every jewelry and...dream. This young girl is growing fast!

Colors

The Oratorio di Santo Stefano is where kids can reunite to play basketball, talk, have fun together (it's property of the Parish). Last summer one of the activities that teenagers did was to color brightly the dull gray cement walls.

Ready to go home

It's 4 PM and it's time to go home. School bus is waiting outside the "Carducci" elementary school, ready to bring some kids to destination. For the others, moms, dads and granparents are waiting the school bell to ring.

One coin a day

Three children, three piggy banks. Every evening, daddy gives each kid a coin (one euro cent, 5 euro cents!) and they run to put it in their one.

Big steps for a small child

My son is only 3 year old and has some normal fears that all children have ... but he struggles always very hard to be brave, I'm really proud of this side of his personality. Here at the playground, he kept saying "I'm scared, I can't go on it" about this rope bridge ... and step by step he made it through the other side. His daddy behind him for the first time ..

It is really marvellous how children learn fast and are happy achieve important results.

Kids' fair

Kids' fair is beginning today! The number of bicycles parked outside the
Oratorio is getting bigger and bigger and next week there will be no place to park. Kids and teenagers gather after the long summer and have an entire week of games, concerts, sports tournaments and so on. When this special week will end, school will start: for our region, Veneto, school is starting Monday 15th September.

Something to discuss about

In yesterday's playground we found this phrase among many other notices and notes on a bulletin board: Dai meno bravi impari quello che non devi fare that is roughly From the less smart/less well behaving you learn what you should not do. This playground is in a parish in Concordia and these notices and notes are hung up by the parson.

What do you think about this phrase? I think it sounds bad, it is negative and certainly doesn't help children that are a bit more lively or simply very bright but in an unconventional way. I didn't like it.

To the public playground

I'm posting late today, the day is almost over here, in Italy. Sundays are full days, especially when you have two small children. Today we spent lots of time at the playground, not our usual one, but a "fancy" one. This is one of the major features ... to climb on.

Third birthday

This is my son, the day of his third birthday (a couple of weeks ago): he now swims without any support, both underwater (his favourite) and crawl. He is very elegant underwater and has a good coordination; when swimming crawl, he still looks a bit ... messy!

Brother and sister

My chldren at the seaside,taking a walk: nothing planned, just a sudden hug reminds me how nice it is to have a brother or a sister to cling to!

Children love rain

Children love rain. All children, I guess!

Here I am

Again a drawing of myself, here. This one is made by my almost 3 year old son, that seems left handed and seems also very interested in drawing: he doesn't do it often, but when he does ... this is the result!

Bimbinfesta (II)

Again a shot of last Sundays' Children's Festival. This is the small train the children could ride ringing the bell in front and waving at their parents on the sidewalk!

Bimbinfesta

Yesterday in Concordia was the day of Bimbinfesta (roughly celebrating children). All school made an exhibit of their works done all the year round (Saturday was the last day of school for Elementary Schools up to higher classes, while kindergarten ends at the end of June) and the town's major gave prizes to the best works. By the way, my daughter's Kindergarten won the first prize (extra funds for the school) with this motivation: "for the effort and the original ideas and very expert realization of a big project about saving Nature and civil living together".

The very center of Concordia, all around the Cathedral was full of children happily involved in toys market, drawing and painting in the street, clowns theatre, a couple of merry-go-rounds. All offered by the town's council, free of charge for children and parents.

A very nice day. I'll post more about it next days.

My daughter and I

Today something different! This drawing is made by my daughter (almost 5 ys). As you can see, it represents my daughter and I together!