Veder lo dolce piano. An educational project of local history in kindergarten

Abstract

This article illustrates an educational project involving five-year-old children attending the Yellow Class of the Ludovico Calza Kindergarten, in Medicina, carried out over the last school year. The project aimed at the knowledge of local history, by observing urban transformations and changes in the lifestyle of its inhabitants over the time. The activities have seen children exploring our most important monuments, asking local authorities for information, reading old maps, documents and books, watching pictures and videos, and listening to oral tales combining historical facts with local legends. The project consisted in a cultural itinerary through centuries in order to discover facts and traditions, to satisfy the natural curiosity of children, to encourage their deductive thinking in comparing past and present aspects of life, and ultimately to promote a feeling of belonging to their community - an essential prerequisite to become adults aware of their active role within a democratic citizenship, with love and respect for their country.