In Grandma's Kitchen

3/6/2017

This past weekend, I held a Growing Little Leaves program at the Indiana Historical Society. The program was entitled, 'In Grandma's Kitchen,' and the activities were themed around food, traditions, and Italian heritage. The program coincided with IHS' opening of their new You Are There exhibit, 1943: Italian POWs at Atterbury. For those of you unfamiliar with the You Are There exhibits, they are living history experiences in which you step back in time and interact with people and places of the past. This new exhibit showcases the experiences of Italian prisoners of war who were brought to Camp Atterbury, which is south of Indianapolis, during WWII.

For this program, we set up tables with various activities for children and their families to explore. We had a small play kitchen set up for little ones, as well as 'recipe' color-and-cut worksheets. Children could color an Italian flag or play a memory matching game with both Italian and English food vocabulary words. There was also an area to learn about different pasta shapes and some historical photos and documents about the early 20th century Italian-American community in Indianapolis. We also had children's books about Italy and Italian-English dictionaries for anyone who wanted to read a little more.

A Little Bit About Indy's Italian-Americans

Italian Food Matching Game

Learn Pasta Shapes

Play Kitchen and Coloring Pages

Video About Camp Atterbury and Handouts and Worksheets.

I uploading my 'In Grandma's Kitchen' handout and Italian Food Memory Game for anyone who would like to download them for their own personal use. Click on the images below for a PDF.