On 1rst of February 2019 our project was presented in local site www.3vita.gr specifically an article with title “1 Nipiagogeio Voulas: Learning and art creation in the nature”
presented an artistic aspect of our outdoor activities with students.
Estonia is covered with thick snow. Children are very happy and enjoy every minute being outside. They make snowmans, snowhauses, snowballs, carrying ice plates and sledding. Teachers also use our wonderful weather conditions for teaching different subjects. We do maths: comparing and counting through the experiments and experience. Also we investigate ice, snow, water and snowflakes – connectings between different weather conditions. Winter is a great time for outdoor education!
Volcanoes are always a very appealing subject for the kids. That was the reason for us to realize a visit to “Eugenides Foundation” where an exhibition about Petrified Forest, geoparks of Greece and Cyprus with significant geological heritage under the title “Mnimes Gaias” was carried out. We had the opportunity to see and touch many different pieces of volcanic rocks and hear about their story from the guide of the exhibition. Kids liked the issue this much, that we also invited a specialist to our school. Mr. Tzitziras , grandfather of a student, Dr Mechanic Geologist accepted our invitation and brought a decent part of his private collection of solid rocks to our school team! What a pleasure! Our students were happy to learn more about them and enthusiastic to create their own ones!
On January 17, 2019 at the invitation of the pre-school inspector of the Prahova County Inspectorate we carried out methodical activities of continuous training at the Prahova Teaching Staff House where we promoted our European project “ Learning outside the classroom in the European nature “ through a power point presentation with all outdoor activities as well as their results. It was a great opportunity for us to share with 45 preschool teachers our results and our progress in learning outside the classroom developed by this European project. The teachers were very interested to see outdoor activity with different themes and locations.
Our flourished “vokamvilia” (a typical Greek plant) outside the main entrance of our school inspired us to create another one inside the school! We followed a long procedure working in small groups in order to pass from one step to the other. We began from cutting small colorful paper into pieces, then we spread them in a plastic surface, we put white glue on the top of them and then we waited for our craft to get dried. The day after, our indoor handmade vokamvilia was ready to get rid of the plastic surface and decorate the window above the entrance!
30 pupils aged 5 years old have decorated all the pages of the calendars with graphic design. Photographs were taken from different outside places where pupils can learn around Marly le Roi. They also learned how to write « BONNE ANNEE » in the different languages of the partners of the project.
Then we went to the post office to buy stamps for Europe. They were very proud to send the calendars to the « teachers who don’t speak french ! »
The first grade students of Don Minzoni primary school together with the lady representative of Infoambiente the regional institution for the environment, and Mr Maccioppi the person responsible for the environment from our Municipality took place in an official and beautiful celebration for trees in our schoolyard. We celebrated “Festa degli Alberi” … the Day of Trees on 21rst of November. We planted a tree, that we named Erasmus and we feel as a green brother!
Christmas time is the most important holiday celebrated in Estonia. The guest of honor in Christmas tradition is of course the Christmas tree. Trees were decorated in homes, schools and kindergartens, on public areas, in the parks and gardens.As Christmas tree is the most inspirational object in children drawings, paintings and handicrafts in December, we decided to make a calendar on this particular topic. Aruküla`s biggest and most important Christmas tree is growing behind the board of local municipality. With our students we take walks to the tree to observe it .We also have Christmas tree growing in Aruküla kindergarten. It`s decorated with Christmas lights and woolen elves made by children. Children just love the tree. The most famous Christmas tree in Estonia stands on Town Hall Square in Tallinn, in the middle of the magical Christmas Market. In December 2018 Tallinn was awarded the title of Best Christmas Market in Europe!
The students of Don Minzoni primary school wrote their Christmas wishes on beautiful postcards from Piacenza. Then they visited the local post office in order to post them and send their wishes to all the partners of our project … in Estonia, Romania, France and Greece. Happy new year to all!
On Wednesday 19th of December we visited the Greek National Opera in Foundation Stavros Niarchos where we watched an opera for kids with title “The Princess and the pea”. It was a unique experience for our students!