This year I had three classes of 1st graders. They were all lovely, eager to learn and communicate….they were fantastic! I decided to take part, with A2 class, 17 pupils, for the first time, in an eTwinning project called Our World of Emotions. Although I wanted to include the other two classes too, I thought that it might be easier and more effective to handle one group.
My 1st graders were amazing, beyond my expectations. They were eager to participate in the project and so enthusiastic with the activities! What’s more, the fact that some other pupils in Greece, in Thessaloniki and on the island of Astypalea, in Malta and in Portugal were also working on the same project boosted their motivation!
We worked on the project one hour a week from November till March but we visited our twin space many times later too – you know that they never get tired of doing the same thing when they are having fun! You can visit our twinspace at http://new-twinspace.etwinning.net/c/portal/layout?p_l_id=27019634.
We explored the issues of feeling happy, worried, friendly, greedy and nosey. Pupils talked about their experiences and identified the underlying behaviours. We saw our partners’ work discussed about it and provided feedback. My pupils practiced speaking and listening but also writing and reading skills. They developed their cognitive, affective, psychomotor and meta cognitive skills. They cooperated and became active members of a European learning community.
We used a lot of ICT tools in order to illustrate our work as vividly as we could so that our partners and anyone else interested could have access to it. For my 1st graders it was like a miracle when they saw their work on the computer. They were amazed when they saw the padlet poster with their work on the wall of their classroom. In the beginning they could not believe this could happen! Then they felt so P r O u D!! You can see our products at http://www.slideshare.net/SophiaKouzouli/our-world-of-emotions-etwinning-project.
I personally feel very lucky because I met and cooperated with two wonderful Greek teachers, Maria Panousiadou and Sofia Theodoridou. They were very helpful, supportive and inspiring throughout the project. We carried out the evaluation of the project in the summer and realized that we had a wonderful collaboration and accomplished our goals.
Our journey in the World of Emotions made our pupils more autonomous, more confident and more cooperative, and we all made Our World of Emotions bigger and more creative!
