About Us
In 2006 Sara Bianchi Chamberlin met a group of Italians in a beautiful and successful children’s playgroup in Sausalito. The playgroup, founded and directed by the founders of Girotondo Italian School (http://www.girotondoschool.org/) was held only once a week, but the kids loved it. This was the first attempt in Marin County to create a recurrent appointment for Italian families and enthusiasts of the Italian language. In the meantime, Sara was interested in exploring other programs in San Francisco and also visited “La Piccola Scuola” (www.lpsisf.com).
At that time Sara Bianchi Chamberlin, with an MA in Languages from Milan State University, was an Italian teacher in the community. Her curriculum focused on teaching Italian as a second language. She was teaching in the continuing education program of Tamalpais High School district and she was also starting her Italian language school ITALIAmore with a variety of Italian language classes for adults and kids of all ages. To stay closer to her community, she was ready to pursue a more ambitious linguistic project and she realized she wanted to help kids grow in their Italian abilities within the Reggio Emilia approach.
Sara Bianchi Chamberlin believed it was the time to build a community around the children and she got involved more and more with the “marinitalians”. With Mark Miglio (founder of www.marinitalians.org), they planned to get the children of Italian families together in a story-time kind of playgroup which they did.
Sara (mom of Cloe 6 and a half and Maia 4) is a dedicated language teacher, very responsible, affectionate and firm with a multitude of great ideas to make Italian fun and entertaining. She strongly believes in the positive effects of the Reggio Emilia approach which is the philosophy embraced in the school. She is a very energetic and multi-tasking person who is proudly involved in many projects to keep her Italian roots alive. In 2009 she introduced an Italian after-school program at Our Lady Of Loretto in Novato (www.ollnovato.org/school/) for children K-7th grade and she is currently working on a television project around the Italian Community in the Bay Area (www.italiamoreshow.com).
April 2008 is an important month for her because she was one of the founders of the full immersion Italian program PARLIAMO ITALIANO – ITALIAmore Preschool that she now manages independently and recently became a recreational program sponsored by Tamalpais Community Services District in Mill Valley. Sara Bianchi Chamberlin
“I have two kids, Cloe who is six and a half and Maia who is four, and I felt the urge to create a linguistic school where kids and adults could learn Italian in a fun and natural way. I know very well how difficult it is to learn languages at a later age. I started studying English when I was 8 in elementary school, and it was relatively easy. In contrast, I learned French and German later on and there was a big difference manifested in how much more difficult it was to learn a language at a later age. I really believe our kids have an incredible advantage growing up bilingual because it makes their brains more flexible and able to decode different patterns in different subjects. Additionally, it enriches their cultural experience by opening their mind to a new world”
–Sara Bianchi talking about the advantages of bilingual education in reply to those moms who were interested in the school.
