This week’s country in our Around the World in 11 Weeks series is Italy! Italy is such a fun country to learn about! The food, the music, so many famous people and each area has its own personality! Not to mention, Rome plays a major role in ancient history! Check out all the resources below and grab the FREE printable portion.
Note: For ideas on how to organize your unit study, visit the Around the World in 11 Weeks main page.
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Printable Unit Study
The printable portion of the unit study contains Italy Notebooking Pages, a Map Scavenger Hunt, a Following Directions activity, a math activity about Italian currency, Famous People notebooking pages, and book summaries. Grab it below! (23 pages)
Want all of the resources below in a PDF to save forever along with unit studies about Russia, France, Germany and the UK?!? Check out:
Videos About Italy
This video is a good introduction to Italy. (6:28 minutes)
Another good overview of Italy. (8:23 minutes)
Video about Ancient Rome (4:51 minutes)
Research More About Italy
Kids World Travel Guide contains a lot of information about Italy along with beautiful pictures.
Ducksters has a variety of information about Italy including information about the geography, economy, and government of Italy as well as famous Italians with links to learn more about them.
National Geographic Kids has a slideshow of related pictures, fast facts, the history of Italy and more.
Cool Kid Facts has a narrative version of facts about Italy written in a larger font making it a good place for younger children to learn.
Hands On Activities
Leaning Tower of Pisa -make with toilet paper roll and white pipe cleaners. And watch this video about it.
Gondola -use this template to make your own gondola or challenge your children to make one on their own. Check out this video about gondolas.
Mt. Vesuvius -check out these resources for making your own Mt. Vesuvius. Or get this kit to make your own volcano. Here is a video to watch with it.
The Sistine Chapel -tape paper under a table and have your children lay under it and paint to mimic how Michelangelo would have painted the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel. Here is a video showing details of the ceiling. (Note: there is nudity in the paintings.)
Make Italian Food
You could have a family pizza night or cook up some pasta with a simple tomato sauce (this is my favorite). Or find an authentic recipe over at Recipes of Italy. Here are a few to get you started.
Some of our Italian dinner:
Famous Italians
Included in the printable portion of the unit study there are notebooking pages for the following famous people of Italy. Here are some resources to research them:
Julius Caesar: Research, Who Was Julius Caesar?, Video
Marco Polo: Research, Who Was Marco Polo?, Video
Leonardo da Vinci: Research, Who Was Leonardo da Vinci?, Magic Tree House, Fact Tracker, Video
Check out the FREE Leonardo da Vinci study here.
Michelangelo: Research, Book and book, Video
Galileo Galilei: Research, Who Was Galileo?, Video
Benito Mussolini: Research, Video
Sofia Loren: Video for older students
Mario Andretti: Research, Video about childhood experience with World War 2. Video about his racing.
Andrea Bocelli: Research, Performance Video
Play Italian Music
Find an Italian playlist on your favorite streaming service or listen to this collection from youtube.com.
Learn Italian
Rock ‘N Learn offers 30 minutes videos for a variety of categories of Italian words. Aimed toward younger learners.
This a good beginner Italian video to expose older students to common phrases.
Listen to common picture books in Italian.
Duolingo is another free way to learn Italian.
Non-fiction Books About Italy
Books from some of our favorite series:
Fiction Books About Italy
There are many children’s books set in Italy. Here are just a few to get you started.
The Strega Nona Series by Tomie de Paola is a great set of books set in Italy for preschool and primary grade children.
Other books for elementary grades:
Math and Science Themed:
Middle School:
Movies About Italy
Dream of Italy from PBS has six episodes, each just under 30 minutes, that take you to different areas in Italy.
Rick Steves’ Europe has several episodes about different parts of Italy. 25 minutes each.
Roman Holiday (1953): Best for ages 9 and up. Included with Amazon Prime membership.
The Lizzy McGuire Movie (2003) is set in Italy and can be rented through Amazon. Ages 7+
The Adventures of Pinocchio (1996) is available to rent through Amazon.
“Go to” Italy
Here are 22 museums in Italy with links to their virtual tours.
Here is another list of five museums with virtual tours.
Check out one of these 35 webcams around Italy!
Download Printable Activities
Get the Unit Study
Subscribe to receive your unit study!
What other activities have you used to learn about Italy?
This Post Has 6 Comments
This is just fantastic!!! Thank you!!
You are welcome!
Thank you for this series of studies. We are working through the Magic Tree House books in chronological historical order and this unit is just in time for an upcoming unit based on 2 of the MTH books which take place in Rome.
Awesome! Glad the timing worked out so well!
Wow! This is fantastic! Thank you ?
You are welcome! We are enjoying it ourselves! 🙂
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