identifying the gender of nouns in the singular and plural regular form, for example, ‘o-i; ‘a-e’; ‘e-i 

observing gender in patterns of names, for example, male names generally end in ‘o’ and female names end in an ‘a’, for example, Giorgio/Giorgia and Marcello/Marcella and noticing exceptions to the rule such as male names in Italian ending in ‘a’ or ‘e’, for example, Simone, Luca, Andrea, and Nicola

using singular and plural, recognising that some singular nouns do not follow the regular masculine/feminine pattern, for example, la mano – le mani; il papà – i papà

using the definite and indefinite articles and understanding how to specify a particular person or object, for example, la mamma, una mamma; il quaderno, un quaderno; l’arancia, un’ arancia

using personal pronouns in context, for example, Chi ha finito? Io!

recognising the different conjugations of common regular verbs in the present tense, for example, ‑are verbs gioco-gioca, mangio-mangiamo

expressing negation, for example, voglio/non voglio

expressing preferences and reasons for preferences, for example, preferisco ... perché …

using adjectives to describe characteristics or qualities of a person or object and noticing that adjectives change with gender, for example, Chiara è italiana, Bruno è greco, Riccardo è portoghese e Marianna è irlandese, la macchina rossa, il libro rosso

using prepositions to indicate location or direction, for example, a casa, a Roma, in città, a sinistra, sopra il tavolo, sotto il banco

using possessive adjectives to express ownership, for example, la mia casa, la tua famiglia, il tuo cappello, mia nonna

using suffixes to add nuance, for example, -ino (fratellino, piccolino) or -etto (poveretto, casetta)

creating simple sentences in the subject+verb+object pattern, and linking ideas using conjunctions such as e and ma

recognising how ideas are sequenced in simple texts by using link words such as prima, dopo