Arlecchino's Costume - A unit about Italian colors and Carnevale

This is a unit about Italian colors inspired by the joyous traditional celebration of Carnevale. I made this to use at home with my bilingual children, but it could easily be used with a larger group.

The material included can be used at any time in the year, but the reference to Carnevale in some - although not all - of the activities makes this unit especially appropriate for the month of February.

What is included:

* A short retelling (in English) of the story of Arlecchino, the little boy who was too poor to afford a costume for Carnevale, but got the most colorful costume of all thanks to the help of his friends.

* A simple coloring activity to practice the names of the Italian colors to recreate Arlecchino's costume.

* A crossword puzzle to practice Italian colors. Answer key included.

* A template to make paper masks.

* Individual jigsaw puzzles (print, color, cut and then try to rebuild) for each of the colors, to practice the Italian spelling of the words.

* a set of cards to be used to gain some familiarity with gender agreement between nouns and adjectives in the Italian language. You will find some suggestions on how to use the cards to introduce gender agreement to students.

* rules of a game to play using the cards. Even without ever hearing the words "gender agreement", students can play the game and acquire an ear for the correct way to match nouns and adjectives (in this case the colors).