Making paper was an awesome experience! All the  students and the teachers had the chance to follow the whole procedure of tranforming used sheets of paper to new ones! The activity was led by the  artist Giannis Papadopoulos -a well known painter and sculptor-  specialising  in making paper and creating art with it. Parents were able to watch our recycled paper drying and  they were enthousiastic with their kids’ creations.

The 17th of November is the National celebration of Democracy and for that reason we prepared a special decoration in our Erasmus+ corner. Kids painted a big wall paper  using  the most happy colors and …words of a famous song. They also made few pieces of art combining various tools such as oil pastels, markers and pencils. Our pupils enjoy living in a democratic country

We had an amazing experience this morning at school working with Elena Giuliani, expert of ancient art with natural materials! She is the president of the cooperative ARCHEOTRAVO which is an Archaeological Parc of Travo  -open air Museum- near our school and she wrote a short text about this special installation of Land Art.

The reduced forest

Land art experience for installation in the school garden

Themes

– Birth, social motivation and conceptuality of Land art; meaning and places of land art; symbols and meanings

– The concept of nature in Prehistory; art and ritual for the Earth in Prehistory; the Paleolithic “Venuses”; natural materials for art

– Landscape as a canvas of art:

a) the work created on and in the place with the materials it offers, adapting the technique to the materials available

b) inclusion in the natural place of conceptual forms, creations that for purposes must return to the state of nature that generated them, following the life cycle foreseen for all the elements (caducity and non-permanence of the work of art)

 Experience

Branches of recovery from a plant destroyed by intense atmospheric events, destined for disposal, which are reused by the pupils. The colors, recalling the colors of the natural elements, cover the stems of the trees of the Forest. The definition of a graphic symbol will be the plan on the garden level where the reduced trees will be installed. The choice of the symbol will take place by voting within the class group.

We are very happy to announce you the installation of our outside Erasmus+ corner !

On 5th of November, 23 students aged 2 1/2 and 3 years old were proud to be the first ones to use it!
They were very happy to stay outside and listen to the instructions for the activities outside. Our outside corner is large enough to welcome one class later they will draw, listen to stories and even organize art exhibitions and all sort of outdoor activities.

On 5th of November 23 pupils aged 2 ½ and 3 years old explored our court yard with magnifying glasses and insects box. They try to find « gendarmes » but as autumn is all ready there, most of the insects were hidden in their house. They started to hibernate.
The door of their house has been open by our assistant to reveal to the pupils a comfortable nest made with dead earwigs, feathers, earth all sort of things necessary for the gendarmes for a long winter.
Pupils were very interested in this activity.

Our love for animals moved us to borrow the  museum kit  “Painting an animal” from the “Museum of Greek Children’s Art”. Our daily program was enriched with pieces of art and kids were happy to approach the animal kingdom with different ways. We even installed an outdoor museum in our Erasmus+ corner  with free etrance to … parents!

The museum kit gave us also a perfect chance to meet our friends in the 1o Primary School Voulas . We arranged an appointment with our colleagues of the 1st grade , Spyridoula Kiskira and Gogo Riga and we visited their schoolyard . All the kids were happy to look at the different paintings  and to play games inspired by various animals. We spent a joyful morning travelling with our precious museum kit!

This year all week before Father`s Day on 11th of November we celebrated  it in our kindergarten. Some groups made celebration like a concert, some groups took a trip to the museum with fathers, one group made event like a yoga training.  Erasmus+ groups decided get more attention to outdoor education and  we  made the evening  adventurous  with sports-games and various tasks for children and their dads on huge territory around kindergarten. Later we had a picnic with snacks made by children. One group baked pancakes straight in the cold November rain.  It was an evening full of excitement, great team-work between fathers and children and adventurous outdoor experience. Teachers were happy for fine partnership with parents.

From September to November parents and grandparents helped 40 middle-class kindergarten children and 30 large group children made musical instruments from recyclable materials and material from nature: drums in metal or cartoons, balloons and yarns of elastic, trumpets from cartoon tubes, plastic glasses, coloured wire and buttons, shoe box guitars, elastic yarns and coloured paper, plastic boxes filled with rice, clipped between two plastic spoons.

Blessed and proud of what they did, they went out into the yard of the kindergarten and held a real concert to complete the musical collection.

An article issued in the last Marly le Roi’s local magazine (October 2018) relating the visit of the european teachers to our school last June during which they went around the different classrooms, observed the artistic work in progress and saw the pupils at work.

During the visit, the pupils have introduced themselves and sang in english and finally, during a diner party in the school yard, all the french teachers and the european partners had exchange their different views on pedagogical and personnal matters.

On Friday 2nd of November 2018 we had the honor and the joy to welcome at our school the artist Martha Dimitropoulou. With studies in Athens School of Fine Arts, in London Royal College of Art and in Fine Arts of University of East London, and also with many honors and awards in solo shows and group exhibitions in Greece and abroad, she is a visual artist who uses the pine needle as a unit repeated with the same steadiness with which one would choose to make a sculpture of clay or plaster. She shared with us her love about pine needles, material which is neglected by nature, and organized with us and our students a unique workshop! We created castles of pine needles, inspired by the cheerful sand castles that kids make by the sea, combined at the end in a final sculpture, a synthesis of all the small ones, named “The Castle of our Fantasy!” Thank you dear Martha Dimitropoulou for this beautiful day!