A seminar was organized by the Gradinita cu Program Prelungit No 21 Ploiesti for the promotion of the activities and results of the LEARNING OUTside the classroom project IN the EUROPEan Nature on 25th of April 2018.
The representative of the Romanian Government, in the person of the prefect of Prahova County, the representative of the Prahova County Council, the school inspectors from Prahova County School Inspectorate who participated in the activity congratulated the project coordinator and all the European partners for presentations and appreciated their efforts to extend relevant educational approaches – an external educational space appropriate to the age of the target group, to ensure successful opportunities for all students.
The Romanian teachers who participated in the seminar gave positive feedback after seeing the project team presentations and appreciated: the diversity of outdoor teaching activities, students’ performance reflected in the artwork, scientific experiments, positive and proactive attitudes of teachers and their students.

The April 25th event organized by Gradinita cu Program Prelungit 21 Ploiesti and the project coordinator were presented and promoted in the online PH online newspaper :

http://ph-online.ro/eveniment/item/96048-gradinita-cu-program-prelungit-nr-21-ploiesti-promoveaza-proiectul-educational-learning-outside-the-classroom-in-the-european-nature

First day, April 25th
– visiting the kindergarten;
– artistic manifestations of children in the kindergarten courtyard – dances, karate;
– didactic activities at the ERASMUS corner outdoor practice activity and environmental experimentation activity, cloud formation, conducted by children aged 4-5 and their teachers;
– a seminar to promote the project’s activities and results, presentations of the members of the countries participating in the project with the participation of the representative of the Romanian Government in the person of the Prefect of Prahova County, the representative of the Prahova County Council, the school inspectors for early education from Prahova County School Inspectorate, the kindergarten headmasters from the county, and the representative of the parents’ kindergarten association, about 50 people.
The second day, April 26th
– organizing a picnic in the Bucov Park near Ploiesti with the participation of 30 children of 5-6 years, 15 parents, professors, European participants;
– children’s artistic manifestations on the Alley writers in Bucov park area;
– visit to the Palace of Parliament building in Bucharest.
The third day, April 27th
– visit to secondary school Nicolae Balcescu – promotion of the project;
– visit to Kindergarten with Extended Program No 23 – educational outdoor musical activity, outdoor project promotion;
– visit to the Ploiesti Clock Museum;
– the festive closing of the transnational meeting in Romania.

The 2nd transnational meeting of our great Erasmus+ team takes now place in Ploiesti, Romania. All the partners -from Romania, Greece, France, Estonia and Italy- presented their series of activities realized outside the classroom in the european nature! The Romanian team achieved the organization of the 1st day of the meeting in an excellent way. Thank you Toba Mihaela Carmen  -Director of the school- and Albu Iuliana-Ana!!!

We received invitations with the map of Romania for the second transnational meeting of our partnership in Ploiesti Romania from 25th  till 27th of April 2018.  Our partners there prepared nice postcards to invite us and we are looking forward meeting them!

Inspired by the land artists Nils Udo, Andy Goldsworthy, Robert Smithson we programmed an outdoor excursion. The wonderful landscape of “Akti Vouliagmenis” (a beach near our school) offered us great points of interest to observe. Kids first admired the elegant statues in small size standing in the neat gardens by the sea and then they reproduced them with their bodies! Their creativity pushed them to make their own sculpture  -a fish- using pieces they found around: stones, small branches, sea shells, leaves.

Coming back to school their inspiration guided them to gather diverse spam objects in an “empty” corner of our garden and decorate it with a brand-new sculpture. The result was … a unique lighthouse  with a small cage on the top!!!

After our easter holidays kids were happy to discover changes in the school garden. We made a tour all around the garden and they asked me to take photos of all these different images : fresh new camomile, leaves, flowers and high tall wheat! My proposition to give them my cell phone so that they would become photographers, appeared as a very appealing idea! Our tour ended up by making artistic compositions using natural elements found around the garden and presented in a hula hoop frame.

This was another happy day for our pupils. It was a nice sunny day and we could organize several sport games outside the classroom such as bowls , ball games and sporting competitions. We enjoyed very much and the weather was our friend creating a pleasant atmosphere in kindergarten courtyard.

During these months we worked on emotions we feel when we are outside the classroom in the open air. We worked on the relationship between emotion, color and form inspired by great painters!

Wednesday 4th of April teachers and assistants organized a big hunting for Easter chocolates.

Few days ago each pupil has decorated egg with decorative graphics, or a rabbit, chick and carrot. In which are some pieces of chocolate . Then around 90 children came outside in the playground for a huge Easter hunting!

Spring hasn’t arrived to Aruküla yet as you can see from the first photo and we decided to experiment with natural materials indoor. There were two experiments.
First one was called “Thirsty celery”. We did  taste celery at first and then we put three branches into three differently coloured water. After a few days we could see how differently coloured liquid had changed celery. The celery looked best in a clear water.

Second experiment was very traditional for Estonians. We do this in the beginning of spring when we feel a need to see some green leaves  after a long cold dark winter as symbol of new beginning in nature.  We do not eat these leaves, we bring them into a warm room and we observe how leaves start to grow from the buds.