Scuola Don Minzoni ‘in Europa’, l’Erasmus parte dall’infanzia

Don Minzoni: Erasmus projects in kindergarten

The Don Minzoni school of Piacenza opens the doors to the internationalization of teaching and is the first in the city to participate in Erasmus projects for children and to obtain important European awards.
‘We started this adventure by involving, for the first time, also the kindergarten in an Erasmus K1 project (‘ Open roads to Europe ‘, in partnership with a Spanish school and a Romanian school), aimed at teaching English language to the children of the maternal and to develop new methodologies related to the theme of inclusion ‘, says Elisabetta Corvi, teacher of the Eighth Circle of Piacenza, who adds:’ The project allowed to start important synergies with other European schools, allowing us teachers to start cultural exchanges with other organizations, opening a window on Europe to children.
Internationalization also involved the Eighth Circle of Piacenza primary school which – in early March – won the international eTwinning award in Copenhagen, – the platform that promotes twinning between European schools in the field of educational innovation – with the project European ‘Out of the box’. The Don Minzoni school has worked in a team with two European schools (one Spanish and one Romanian) and has received an important recognition in terms of creative writing and use of technologies in narrative function, developing storytelling skills in children thanks to the use of different forms of expression (writing in English, images and making videos). The project – curated by the teachers Marisa Badini and Ilenia Brancato – won last November also the national eTwinning award 2017, reaching among the ten finalists.
The pride of the Eighth Circolo di Piacenza is also the participation in the ‘Computational Thinking and Coding’ training course which was held recently in Finland: ‘We are one of the seven Italian schools involved in the coding project together with Finland, Norway, Iceland, Sweden, Denmark and Estonia ‘, explains Elisabetta Corvi, who has developed (with the project to introduce robotics’ Wild life story with bee-bots ‘) the theme of disability as a resource,’ reasoning with the partners of Finland and Norway on inclusion as an enrichment for each school ‘. Last September – moreover – the Don Minzoni school was involved in three other Erasmus K2 projects, adding another piece to the internationalization: ‘Thanks to the support of the manager Sabrina Mantini, we have developed – together with the teachers Marisa Badini, Carmela Simone and Cristina Cella – three innovative projects in partnership with other European schools. The first (‘Mystery of History’) represents a journey into the history and cultural roots of Italy, Croatia and Slovenia, involving the primary classes in the discovery of national and international historical and artistic heritage, ‘added teacher Elisabetta Corvi, who he then recalled the participation in the project (‘Bilingual citizenship education’) focused on citizenship skills and implemented in partnership with Poland and Spain. The third project involving all kindergartens and schools of the Circle (Learning outside the classroom in the European nature) concerns the methodologies of open learning, and also involves Estonia, France, Romania, Greece. The Eighth Circle of Piacenza will represent Italy and will host – in June 2019 – the conclusion of the work: ‘We have already participated in a first planning meeting in Estonia followed by a meeting in Romania (next April) and a workshop in France (Gardens of Versailles) in June. In autumn – concludes Elisabetta Corvi – we will be in Greece for another workshop that will address the issue of active citizenship since childhood for the recovery of outdoor spaces in which to grow in respect of the other and the environment.