1. One of the scheduled activities of the program is to create a power point presentation of the school building, the students, the school staff and the school yard. So our students became young photographers! We just needed 4 cameras which were intensely used  because of the children’s enthusiasm! We even revealed some natural talents! Every class took photos of the classroom, the children’s’ creations, the students of the class nearby. Other groups of children took photos of the school yard. Over 300 photos were captured in total. It was an exciting activity!

2. Aiming at familiarizing children with the Art of Sculpture, three groups of students accompanied by their teachers, visited the Pottery Workshop, which is organized by the City of Athens Culture, Sports & Youth Organization (OPANDA). The students had the opportunity to experience the joy of creation by learning the basic principles of ceramics.

The children cut the clay into small and large pieces, then they wet their hands and started creating whatever they imagined, using small wooden knifes.

The children’s artwork was truly inspired. The person in charge of the workshop also empowered the children and the teachers in the Arts of music and dance. The sounds of the piano, the guitar, the mound, the ceramic bells, which banged in various rhythms, gave the artwork  life. The students also sang “the song of clay”!

3. The activities never end! One more activity, within the occupational therapy program, was to create happy, sad and angry faces made of plastic plates. This activity is aiming both to recognize emotions and improve fine motor skills.

We also created clock-faces, made of plastic plates, aiming to teach time.

4. How important is to recognize our feelings as well as the feelings of our friends, family, people around us? We believe that it is really important. That is why we have created the “game of feelings”, which is going to help us explore our own feelings as well as other people’s.

The game is easily played and gives fun and knowledge to our students. Images are displaying in the interactive whiteboard and students need to choose the right plate-face, depicting how the person of the image feels! Then we imitate joy, sadness, anger, surprise, fear and discuss about  what makes us happy, sad, fearful, angry or surprised!

5. The first 2 official activities of the program “Artemotion Xpress in Europe” are finally completed. «Getting to know each other» and «I will show you where I am from» are ready to be presented at the partner schools. We hope that you will enjoy our presentation.

6. During our school’s celebration for the National Anniversary of 17 November 1973, we tried to connect art and emotions. Thus, there was a narration, a photo and video presentation about the Athens Polytechnic uprising and finally a discussion about the feelings that were emerged by the images of the tank crashing through the gates of the Polytechneion, the students and their struggle against the junta. At the same time, some pupils created excellent handicrafts, which they presented to their classmates and discussed about their creations. Finally, the celebrations ended with songs about the Anniversary of 17 November 1973.

7. Students’ imagination is limitless. Thusly, once more they expressed their creativity by making mosaics inspired by pictures of statues. The students got familiar with the Arts of Sculpture and mosaics. They felt emotions like joy, pleasure, inventiveness, which they recognized and described.

8. After the 1st short term joint staff training and learning event in Poland and since our program has closed its 3rd month cycle, we organized an open to the public presentation at the school. During the presentation students and their parents were informed about the program “Artemotion Xpress in Europe”, the 1st transnational project meeting and the 1st mobility to Poland. They were also informed about the partner schools and understood the program’s function, its structure, goals and the activities.

9. Visiting several museums is an integral part of the program. Familiarizing with Art could be a way for our students to be inspired and be creative and sometimes express things that cannot be expressed in words. Therefore, a group of students visited the Cycladic Art Museum and participated in the workshop: The human form in ancient times.
The initial aim of this museum is to be entertaining for the children who visit, while at the same time to involve them in a creative process in order to:
– Comprehend that there is no right or wrong in Art
– Learn that over the centuries people have used many different ways in order to illustrate the human form.
– Realize that Art is something vivid and evolves just like life. Times change, civilizations change, so the way we perceive the human form changes.
– See artworks and useful objects exhibited as a testimony of the distant past.
– Activate their imagination and learn through an interactive program.
– Create their own human form by using all the stimuli they have received.

10. Christmas is coming and our school’s Social Worker, Mrs Passalidou Aggeliki and the “School for parents” created beautiful Christmas calendars. We believe that this was the best way for parents to understand the goals of the Erasmus+ program, while being involved in Art and express their creativity and emotions though crafts.

11. The Christmas spirit is all over the school! And Christmas is a celebration characterized by creativity, imagination and vivid cheerful emotions. A group of students decorated our school Christmas trees with beautiful handmade ornaments and showed us the meaning of cooperation and teamwork.

12. Aiming at familiarizing children with the Art of Filming, our students watched a cheerful Christmas movie and were informed about the Art of Filming and Animation in the most fun way.

13. Within the European program Erasmus+ “Artemotion Xpress in Europe” and in order to familiarize parents with the aims of the program, we organized workshops, which took place at the school, during the three Saturdays before Christmas. During the workshops teachers, students and parents met for 3 hours and made several Christmas decorations.
Our goal was to strengthen the relationship between the school and the parents, to involve them in the program “Artemotion Xpress in Europe” and to make them understand the benefits of Art in expressing our emotions. All the decorations which were created, were disposed at a 3-days Christmas bazaar. Teachers and parents cooperated for the best results.

14. Within the partnership’s obligations was the creation of a brochure informing about the European program Erasmus+ “Artemotion Xpress in Europe”, addressed to parents, school staff and community. This brochure had to be ready until the 20th of December 2015. Firstly, the brochure was made in English language and then it was translated in each partner’s country language. It was distributed to parents during our school’s Christmas event, while an attempt is being made to dispose it to the general public.

Brochure in Greek

15. One more activity within the Erasmus+ program was “The Christmas journalist”. Our students became young journalists for a while in order to reveal their classmates’ feelings during Christmas. The aim was to explore and express emotions by familiarizing with the Art of photography and filming. Enjoy them!

Christmas Journalist

 

16. The last Christmas activity concerned free expression through dancing. Thusly, our Christmas play included several kinds of music like happy, sad, rebellious music which gave the chance to our pupils to   improvise, expressing exactly how they felt through their body movement and body language, through gestures and facial expressions, while teachers interfered and guided only when needed.

The students were dressed up as traditional Greek sweets called melomakarona (small honey cakes) and kourabiedes (sugar buns), who were living in a special village called Melokoura Kouramelo. Melomakarona were fighting with Kourabiedes for the first time in the history of the village. But their conflict ended with peace, love and optimism.

Parents, friends and relatives attended our Christmas celebrations and enjoyed our special theatrical play, the children’s free choreographies, the videos with students’ interviews, Santa Clause who gave presents to the kids and many more surprises! The result was wonderful judging by their applause!