Andiamo! Let’s go!
Italy is for everyone! There’s delicious food, years and years of history and plenty of fun festivals and parties.
Italy is interesting because it only became a country very recently. For a long time Italy was split into different kingdoms and cities which were so powerful that they didn’t need countries. That means there are lots of different traditions, different types of food and different festivals all across Italy. Let’s learn about some of them!
This workbook is all about the culture, history and food of Italy - we’ve even got some recipes!
This workbook has 7 different activities.
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Before you start…
You’ll need some printed worksheets to complete this workbook. Start by clicking the button below and printing out the sheets.
Get a grown up to help you if you need it.
MAKE SURE TO CHECK ‘FIT TO PAGE’ WHEN YOU PRINT
When you’ve printed out the worksheets and got a pen or pencil, then scroll down to the begin the activities.
Not sure how the workbook works? Click the button below…
Here’s a bigger map…
You can click on the blue circles to learn more - it might help you later!
Do you have a younger brother or sister?
Maybe they want to join in with the workbooks, but they’re not quite old enough. We’ve made a Sibling Sheet for them to do at the same time. Click on the button to download and print the sheet.
First Questions
There are lots of interesting things to learn about Italy! Can you answer the questions in this quiz?
Remember, try not to guess but actually do some research to find out the answers - ask your parents, or look on the Internet to find the answers!
Famous Italian people
There are lots of famous Italian people, from writers to artists, to politicians and singers.
Can you work out which famous Italian is which from how they describe themselves? You’ll need to do some research.
Here are the famous Italians:
• Dante Aligheri • Maria Montessori • Niccolò Machiavelli • Rita Levi-Montalcini • Benito Mussolini • Galileo Galilei • Renata Tebaldi •
There’s space to write out the answers on page 3 of the worksheets.
One of the answers has a star - that’s the answer that should go in the Answer Grid⭐
Activity 2: Let’s make a map of Italy
Italy is the 10th biggest country in Europe. It’s shaped quite like a high-heeled boot, with the boot kicking the island of Sicily. Italy has mountains in the north, beautiful hills and fields in the centre and wonderful beaches in the south. It also has lots of coastline and quite a few volcanoes!
Take a look at page 4 of the worksheets. It has a blank map of Italy. We’re going to label this map, except we’re going to label it with the Italian names of places, rather than the English names.
You’ll probably need to look at a map of Italy to help you. There’s one further up on the webpage.
Follow the instructions on pages 5 & 6 of the worksheets to fill it in with Italian names. You’ll find a star on the worksheets ⭐
B.C., A.D., B.C.E. and C.E.: What do they all mean?
Deciding when things happen in history is a big complicated. We’ve made a little presentation to explain it.
Activity 3: The Romans
The Romans started off as a small tribe in the marshes of what would later be called Rome. By the time the Roman Empire faded away, they controlled all of this…
The Romans were great builders and inventors. They built towns, baths and aqueducts for transporting water and invented concrete.
They built lots of roads, which were all in straight lines. Before the Romans people used paths that were the easiest to follow, around hills and avoiding streams. But the Romans built in straight lines, crossing over hills and people’s lands to make it easy for their army to move around. If you live in Europe and you find a very straight long road, it was probably first built by the Romans.
The Romans also had a powerful army, which was very organized. In fact, every Roman army camp was organized in exactly the same way, so anyone could find their way around.
The Roman Army invaded lots of other places, and then made them part of the Roman Empire. While some non-Romans wanted to be free, others could see that the Romans brought money and trade with them, making life a bit easier for everyone.
The Roman Empire lasted for a long time - almost 1,000 years - so there’s a lot of history about it. We also know about a lot of what happened then, because people wrote down their stories and history.
Take a look at the key events below. Now look at pages 7 & 8 of the worksheets. Can you fill in the timeline with everything in the right order? If you like you can add drawings and colours in as well.
Look at the 11th event on the timeline. This event was caused by a volcano erupting. What was the name of the volcano? ⭐
You may need to do some research to answer this question.
The Italian Renaissance
After the Roman Empire fell, Europe went into “the Dark Ages” or the Medieval Age. Some of the things invented by the Romans, like concrete, were forgotten about. It was also a time when most history wasn’t written down, so it is “dark” because we don’t really know what happened then.
Then in the 1300s, the Renaissance happened. Renaissance means “rebirth” and it was a time when life started to get better for people and there were big changes in education, art, science, books and music. The Renaissance started in Italy, and then spread across Europe.
Italy became a centre of learning and art. Rich people started paying artists to paint and draw and design beautiful buildings. Rich people wanted beautiful things around them, so they paid others to make them.
One of the most famous rich Italian families was the Medici family.
The Medicis
The Medici family started off by opening a bank. Before long they were the richest family in Europe.
The family lived in Florence, where the Italian Renaissance started. They became very powerful - so powerful that Popes and Kings would ask them what they thought. They spent lots of their money funding scientists and artists and writers, who would make beautiful things for them. Lots of the beautiful, amazing things we have from the Italian Renaissance are because of the Medici family.
The Medici could also be quite badly behaved. They made sure no one else had any power and even sometimes poisoned their enemies!
Things we have the Medici to thank for…
Modern banking and lots of ways of counting money
Famous artists, writers and scientists like Machiavelli, Gallileo and Da Vinci
The Uffizi Gallery and most of the paintings in it
Two Queens of France
4 Popes
Activity 4: Francesco’s Alchemy
One of the Medici, Francesco, was very interested in chemistry, or as it was called in those days - alchemy.
Alchemy was the attempt to turn one substance into another. Most of the time, people were trying to turn less valuable materials into gold. Many alchemists tried to make a Philosopher's Stone, which could turn anything into gold, and make the owner live forever.
Alchemists never managed this, but they did discover other things like arsenic, zinc and phosphorus.
Francesco de Medici had his own special laboratory for alchemical experiments. He did make some discoveries, but never made gold.
Take a look at the shelf of Francesco’s ingredients. Each one has a label with a letter on it. When the letters are rearranged they will spell a substance that Francesco discovered through his alchemy (it’s not gold!). On page 9 of the worksheets is a list of instructions to make the new substance. The new substance is the answer that goes in the Answer Grid ⭐
Remember, you have to follow the instructions in the right order to spell out the right word!
Activity 5: Local festivals
Lots of countries have festivals, but Italy has tons! Some celebrations you might have heard of like the Venice Carnival, and some celebrations happen all across Italy, like Easter and Christmas. But lots of small towns have their own festivals, which are completely unique to that place.
No one is quite sure why Italy has so many different types of festivals, although it might be because Italy stayed as lots of small countries, rather than a big one, for a long time.
Take a look at the map of different local festivals below. Now have a look at the table on pages 10, 11 & 12. Can you match up the locations of the festivals with their names and descriptions?
You’ll need to use the map to help you.
Keep an eye out for the city or town with the star - that’s the answer that goes in the Answer Grid! ⭐
Activity 6: Let’s speak Italian!
You’ve received a letter from your Italian penpal Gio! Can you translate it using the vocabulary list on page 13 of your workbooks? Remember, the goal isn’t to make a perfect translation, just to get an idea of the meaning.
You can click on the letter to make it larger…
If you find this activity too difficult, you can always use Google Translate!
The answer to this puzzle is the Italian word for the animal that Gio owns ⭐
(not his name but the type of animal!)
Where does pasta come from?
Italy is most famous for… food!
Italy is the home of pizza, gelato, tiramisu, prosciutto, arancini, cannoli and of course, pasta!
Italian recipes are often simple but are made with really good ingredients. We have a few Italian recipes which you can try and cook yourself but remember to only use the freshest vegetables.
You can even make fresh pasta yourself if you have the right equipment!
Although there are loads of Italian foods to learn about, we’re going to focus on pasta in this workbook.
Pasta is a favourite food in Italy. We’ve made a little video to explain the history of pasta.
Take a look!
Some people think pasta means spaghetti, but pasta comes in all sorts of shapes. In fact, Italy has more than 350 different shapes of pasta, which each have their own name.
Here are 10 types of pasta (but there are loads more)
Activity 7: Pasta Sudoku
Have you ever done a Sudoku before?
It’s normally done with numbers, but this time we’re doing it with different types of pasta instead.
Each row needs to have all of the six different types of pasta to be complete. Each column also needs all the types of pasta in it, and so do each of the boxes.
Take a look at the Sudoku copy on page 14 of your worksheets. When you’ve filled in all the pasta shapes (you can draw them yourself) the box with the star is the type of pasta which goes in the Answer Grid ⭐.
If it’s too difficult for you to complete with pasta types, you can also try to finish the Sudoku with numbers instead - it works exactly the same! Take a look on page 15 of your worksheets - there’s a version of the SuDoku with numbers - but you’ll still have to work out which pasta types fits in the answer grid!
