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To stay closer to her community, she soon thereafter founded Girotondo Italian preschool in Mill Valley.  To increase her knowledge of early childhood education, she also started attending Early Childhood education classes at the College of Marin. After less than a year and a half, she realized her goals were to help kids grow in their Italian abilities within the Reggio Emilia approach. She was ready to move on and pursue a more ambitious linguistic project.

At that time Sara Bianchi, 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.

Sara Bianchi 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 & Sara were both looking for a friend, a professional and a partner with whom to start this ambitious project, and they found each other ready to start this adventure together. Sara Arrigoni (mother of Matteo 7 and Emma 4) has broad experience with kids (she had been a teacher in Italian pre-schools for the prior 6 years as one of the original teachers at LPSI and as a founder of Girotondo Italian School). She is an amazing teacher, very responsible, affectionate and 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 they embrace in their school.

April 2008 is an important month for them because they founded the program PARLIAMO ITALIANO – ITALIAmore Preschool in San Rafael.

Sara Arrigoni
Sara Bianchi

“I have two kids, Cloe who is six and Maia who is three, 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.