FAIRY TALES FROM ITALY
MULTIDISCIPLINARY FLIPPED LEARNING WITH ICT ERASMUS PLUS PROJECT KA2 2015 - 2017
THE WALK OF AN ABSENTMINDED By Gianni Rodari
-Mum, I’m going out for a walk.-Ok, Little Giovanni, but be careful when you cross the street..-Ok, mum. Bye-You're so absent- minded!...-Yes mum. ByeLittle Giovanni is very happy and for ten minutes he's very careful... Sometimes he stops and he touches his arms, his legs, his ears and all his body. - Did I lose anything? No, I didn't- and he laughs. He is very happy to be careful, but he begins jumping as a cricket... A man sees that the boy hasn't a hand: - Little Giovanni, you're very absent-minded! Look, you’ve lost a hand!- Uh, yes it's right. I'm so absent-minded... Little Giovanni forgets to look for his hand, because he finds a jar, then he wants to help a poor dog, and every metre Little Giovanni loses bits of his body. At Little Giovanni's .... - Excuse me, I’ve found a nose, is it your child’s?- Yes, thanks, he's very absent-minded.Then the baker knocked on the door, and after him the butcher, a teacher. Everyone has a part of Little Giovanni's body. - You’ve got such a strange child!-
Yes, I know....Two hours later Little Giovanni comes home, with only one leg, but happy. -Did I lose anything, mum?- No, you didn’t, you are a good boy...... -
ALICE IN THE INKWELL By Gianni Rodari
This is the story of Little Tumbling Alice who was always tumbling into things. Once she fell into a clock, another time into a bottle, then into a drawer, into a ball, into a soap bubble... in short she tumbles everywhere! This is the story of how Alice fell into an inkwell: Once Tumbling Alice put the nib into the inkwell in such an energetic way that she fell in it. -Ouch!- said a voice next to her. Alice couldn’t see anyone, because the ink, from the inside is as black as it is from the outside. So she asked: -who’s there? Did I hurt you?- You bumped into me! I’m the word Fragile: you have to treat me with care! You could have broken me!- -Oh, I am so sorry!- Alice said, and then she swam a little further away. Now, she could see some shadows swimming nearby: some of them were long, others were short, some with an accent on their heads. They were The Words. The inkwell was so full of them that it was difficult to understand how it could contain them all: you would have to bump into at least one of them if you wanted to move. But fortunately not all of them were offended by that. -Hello!- said happily one Word that Alice wrongly touched on its tail. –I am Alice. And who are you?- -I’m the word Joker: I’m always up to something!. You do
laugh with me!- -But I’m not laughing.- Alice replied. – If you tickle yourself, you’ll laugh. Ahahahaha!-What a sense of humor!- said a deep voice near there. – Who’s there?- Alice said –I’m the word Disaster. You should realize why laughing doesn’t come easy to me!Disaster said. –Excuse me,- Alice asked – You that are such a serious word, could you suggest me some words to write a nice essay with?- -Oh, I only know very serious words: Crash, Earthquake, Hurricane, Rejection, Milkspilled-onto-a-stoke, and other stuff like that.-Thank you so much- Alice said. And with a sharply move she left, touching and hurting herself with the thorn of the Word Thorn. Pretty soon Alice found the edge of the inkwell, she climbed it, and finally she saw the light again. -Oh, now I can breathe!- Alice said catching her breath, and drying her dress. –I’ll look for the words for my essay inside of me. The inkwell is too messy!-
PINOCCHIO By Carlo Collodi
Finding an unusual piece of wood, the carpenter Geppetto decides to carve it into a puppet and call it Pinocchio.
It can walk, move, speak and screw up like a real boy. Hoping to educate him Geppetto, sells his coat and buys Pinocchio a dictionary. Pinocchio sells it to buy a ticket to see a puppet show. Here the terrible master of the company, Mangiafuoco, taking pity on the untrue stories told by Pinocchio, has mercy upon him and gives him five gold coins to give to Geppetto. The naive Pinocchio stumbles upon a couple of villains, after a series of bad adventures, Pinocchio and his new friend Lucignolo end up to the Toy Land, where everyone doesn’t have to do anything but play. Later the boys turn into donkeys.
At the end Pinocchio gets swallowed by a whale. Inside the whale he finds his dad, Geppetto. Pinocchio and Geppetto manage to escape the whale and with the help of the Turquoise-Haired Fairy he becomes a real boy, good and generous.
THE BLUE TRAFFIC LIGHT By Gianni Rodari
Once, the traffic light that is in Milan, on the Duomo Square, did a strange thing. All its lights, turned blue, and people didn’t know how to behave. "Shall we cross the street or not? Shall we stand here or not?" From all of its eyes, in all directions, the traffic light was giving out its unusual blue light, a blue so blue that even the sky above Milan had never been so blue. While waiting to understand something, car drivers were screaming and hooting, motorcyclists were making their engines roaring and the fattest pedestrians were shouting: "You don’t know who I am!" Some jokers were making fun of it: "The Green colour maybe was taken by the Commander, as he wanted to build a cottage in the countryside. Then someone else used the red to colour fish in the Gardens. Do you know what the yellow was used for? They added it to olive oil." Finally a policeman came and sat in the middle of the crossroad to untangle the traffic. Another policeman tried to repair the control panel, and turned off the electricity. Before turning off, the blue traffic light had time to think: "Poor people! I had given them the signal - green light - for the sky. If they had understood me, now everyone would have known how to fly. But maybe they lacked the courage." Men get used, as car drivers do to, living with their heads on the steering wheel, looking out the road, everyone
locked in his iron box, only worried about his job, money, and thousands of daily troubles.
TUMBLING ALICE FALLS INTO THE SEA By Gianni Rodari
When Tumbling Alice went to the seaside for the first time, she soon loved it and she said: I want to stay here until I'll become a fish. Every evening, she checked her body, but she couldn’t find any fin. One day, she got up early, she went to the beach where she met a nice boy, who told her: I can become a fish. Alice said: Please, tell me how could I become a fish, too? - Ok, come on!So Alice dived into the ocean. Alice was swimming, when a big shell yawned and Alice was entrapped in it. - Oh no, now I’m in trouble...But the deep ocean was very quiet, and Alice wanted to stay there forever. But she loved her parents, too...- No, I can't, they love me so much.So Alice managed to open the shell and she went back to her bedroom. She has never told anyone what happened that day...
THE ASTROLOGER FARMER By Italo Calvino
Once upon a time there was a king who had lost his precious ring. Look here and look there he couldn’t find it anywhere. So he decided to issue a public invitation to select an astrologer. If this one could manage to find the King’s ring, the King would make him rich for the rest of his life. Now , there was a farmer without any money; he couldn’t write and read and his name was Gambara. He decided to try so he went to the king’s.
The King locked him in a room and gave him a pen and a piece of paper to prove he was a real astrologer. So Gambara started to draw some simple pictures: they seemed to be right but they were just doodles. Every day
three servants brought him food. They were the thieves: they had stollen the King’s precious ring. Gambara was suspictios of them so he eyed them with caution. The three servants thinking of having been found out, confessed everything. Gambara did not betray them but he suggested them to a make a turkey swallow the ring. The following day Gambara told the king that after studying very hard he knew where the ring was. The turkey was cut up and the ring found. The king made Gambara very rich and gave a dinner in his honour. During the party an unknow food was served. The king asked the astrologer what the name of these unusual animal was, the poor farmer has never seen such beasts so he said to himself: “ Gambara, Gambara... You’re in a great trouble!”. The king, who didn’t know the farmer- astrologer’s name exclaimed: “ Excellent”! You’re the best of all astrologers! Gamberi( prawns) is the name of this animals!
THE GOLDEN FISH By Anonymus
One day a poor fisherman found in his net a golden fish which was waving its fins and moving his mouth, asking for freedom. It was so heart-warming that the fisherman let it go, although, reselling it to a jeweler, he could obtain a bag of money. "I will reward you generously," said the fish, unexpectedly, before disappearing into the waves "but you will never tell anyone what happened." When the fisherman came home, he found that his miserable hut had become a fantastic castle and his wife was wearing clothes worthy of a queen. "Where does all this wealth come from?" It was the first thing she asked her husband, when she saw him back. "Don’t ask this to me, my dear, or we’ll lose everything!". But the woman did not give her husband a moment's respite, and he finally told her about the golden fish. Instantly their fantastic castle became a shack again, everything was as before, and the woman was the one who had always been: curious and never happy.
DRAWINGS BY: Monica Alberti Nohalia Aouad Haitam Bahloaui Giorgia Bellotto Alexander Fornalè Sara Grizzi
PRESENTED BY: Alessandro Bottardi Emma Luppi Greta Gialdini Alice Tucci
SOURCES: Rodari G., Favole al telefono, Einaudi Ragazzi, Milano, 1997. Rodari G., Le favolette di Alice, Einaudi Ragazzi, Vicenza, 2012 Collodi C., Pinocchio, Felice Paggi, Firenze, 1883 http://isolafelice.forumcommunity.net/?t =38905049