Miesiąc: grudzień 2021

Virtual mobility

Because of an epidemic situation in Europe none of the countries is willing to take a risk and organize a mobility. That’s why we decided to set up virtual mobilities. All the details were agreed on during a virtual meeting of all the school coordinators and the Italian team offered to organize the first one. Since it was supposed to concern relationship, emotions and their positive influence on our mental health, we decided to organize it in Christmas spirit just before the Christmas holiday. Before the meeting students uploaded some short information about themselves on the common padlet and they made collages presenting things which make them happy. 

During the meeting we took part in the following activities organized by the Italian team:

  • quizzes about relationships, naming the stages of relationships
  • discussing reasons for our feeling emotional
  • making ’emotional alphabets’
  • brainstorming for qualities which are crucial for being a loyal friend
  • shortlisting the essential traits of a good friend
  • considering possible causes of anger issues 
  • checking how well we know our Christmas customs by playing a Kahoot quiz on which we all collaborated

Both the teachers and students were happy to see their friends and listen to them. Technology this time was almost on our side so we were able to participate fully in the planned activities. We finished the two-hour long meeting wishing each other Merry Christmas and a happy New Year.  

Reading is awesome

This year we decided to introduce reading as a long-term stress-relief strategy and a way to increasing vocabulary and comprehension. There are numerous benefits of reading, especially empowering people to empathizing with others, reducing stress, improving communication skills. It also helps to concentrate on one thing at the time and improves your ability to understand other people and see the world from perspectives of our family, friends, classmates and even enemies. 

We introduced reading on English lessons on a regular basis. We started from deciding what factors influence our choices. In other words – what makes us choose this book not the other one. Students made posters on which they listed the main reasons for choosing some books while buying or borrowing them. Students read some excerpts from the book chosen by the teacher and after reading it they discuss the content, try to predict what may happen, they characterize protagonists, their personalities and skills. They describe the relationships between characters, their plans and intentions. They are also given various tasks related to the book read:

  • drawing a comic based on a chosen story
  • using Lego bricks to present the chosen scene
  • presenting a character they especially like 
  • making word clouds of the vocabulary they learned from the book
  • comparing characters 
  • comparing accuracy of the film based on the book with the book itself
  • role playing 
  • making mind-maps
  • reconstructing a journey of book characters
  • using Google maps to count distances and see the places where the story takes place

The activities are enjoyed by the students, they are interested in the stories they read, they are keen to discuss the problems mentioned. Their creativity and general knowledge seem to expand. 

Willeas Fogg in New York

World Mental Health Day

We celebrate the World Mental Health Day by organizing lectures for children. All the lectures, delivered by school psychologists, concern the typical problems adolescents deal with, such as managing emotions, prioritizing, rejection, peer pressure. All of them can result in serious mental problems, so school time is a proper time to develop social and emotional strategies which would help them to cope with these problems. These include: adopting a regular schedule of activities, ability to tackle problems and developing interpersonal skills. We also created a padlet with a collection of video clips, articles, lesson plans and other supplementary teaching materials as a resource for class tutors to use during the form time.

The lectures and the resources engaged students in discussing the following topics: 

  • dealing with peer pressure and bullying
  • exploring one’s own identity   
  • resilience to stressful home and school life, 
  • disparity between a teenager’s lived reality and the pressure to be perfect in social media 
  • symptoms of depression, dealing with psychic inertia
  • an impact of regular physical activities on the quality of life
  • other risks to mental health

Meal planning

To show the younger ones how to plan their meals and influence their parents to provide healthy lunches and snacks for them we conducted workshops with a dietician, dr Anna Walentukiewicz, from Academy of Gdansk Universityof Physical Education and Sport. Additionally, they consolidated what they learned during Biology and English classes. The studemts: 

  • Learned the main types of nutrients, such as protein, carbohydrates, fats and vitamins and which products are the vital sources of these nutrients 
  • were taught how to choose foods and beverages with healthier fats, less sodium, and less added sugars 
  • planned their own weekly menu for school lunches
  • brought their healthy packed lunches from home, they presented them, took photos and made films about their lunches
  • learned how to assess the nutritional value of the meal and how to read labels 
  • watched school lunches from other countries and discussed their value – how healthy the food is, how much protein, fat and carbohydrates it contains, how many portions of fruit and vegetables it has got
  • learned how to share information about the benefit of healthy eating 
  • were told which food use to keep their energy up for longer and how to keep themselves fuller for longer and avoid energy drinks as well as to replace ingredients regularly to provide variety 
  • were taught how to identify spices and herbs which can be used instead of salt.
  • planned their own daily meals