Here is the summary of this year activities compiled by the students of IC Diotti school from Casalmaggiore. Because of the situation in they region they didn’t take part in mobilities but that does not mean they didn’t work hard trying to:
implement healthy habits
learn how to manage anxiety
develop connecting to others emotionally, being proactive, communicating effectively,
overmaster goal setting and working towards them
improve speaking skills outside the class by encouraging communication with foreign friends
build group cohesion by facing tasks that need researching online or in class, taking action or making common decisions
To get prepared for functioning in the society and be accepted children should know their roles, rights and a scope of responsibilities. Responsibility generates maturity and increases self-esteem, as the children recognize that they become capable. The sooner they understand their rights and their ability to take responsibility for their actions and behaviour the better, although it is individual based. Teens can provide emotional and practical support to their family and friends and, in this way, build their sense of importance, self-esteem and well-being. To understand how to achieve autonomy and gain social skills, the teens prepared short recordings about how they contribute to their households and how they develop their sense of independence. They were all collected in one digital poster.
3rd Grade students from Italy reflected on what makes them feel good and reduces stress, they give a thought to the importance of physical activity but also consider how they manage time and focus to achieve objectives. Here is a padlet with their short oral presentations on healthy living.
Exposure to nature gives us a great number of benefits, such as improved attention, lowering stress, better mood and last, but not least, it may turn out preventing and treating certain vision ailments as we flex eyes’ muscles trying to focus on objects off in the distance. Exposure to UVB rays triggers the release of dopamine and circulates vitamin D in the body. All these processes help to preserve good health and a positive attitude.
To understand a connection between nature and our well-being and realize our responsibility to protect and sustain the Earth, our students took part in classes during which they discussed the habits they can adopt to save the Earth. They created cartoon strips and illustrated their own obligations to change their habits. We organized also going out to adventure parks and the beach in order to promote active ways of spending free time outside.
As the project intended to develop activities concerned to the well- being of students, such as doing sport, developing strategies to manage stress in their life and having a right diet, the activities in Portugal, more specifically in Amares, were focused basically in sport and mindfulness. All activities were based in an expository, questioning and active methodology, which means that students tried a practical experimentation most of the times. During the short-term exchange of groups of pupils, Portuguese, Polish and Spanish students, 38 in total, presented their traditional games and shared their features using ICT tools. Next they developed creative writing creating haiku poems and learned some strategies for relaxing, making specific noises and movements. The day after, students visited the Stadium, the Museum and Sports City of Sporting Club of Braga, a very important team in Portugal. They had the chance of taking photos in the VIP room, walk around the pitch and sit in the ends. While at the Museum, students were able to be acquainted with the club history as well as admiring the cups the team has won through the years. Then, they walked to the club Sports City, whose aim is to prepare young boys/girls to become successful footballers. The students visited the facilities and enjoyed a fantastic view of the city, from the building terrace. The club provided a guide, who kept the students’ interest in the visit, by informing them of some fun facts and curiosities about the club history, football players or even about the building. The students also visited INL (International Nanotechnology Laboratory) a highly considered laboratory
After this visit, students observed how water can be an element that helps to move a funicular by pushing it up and down on the hill of Bom Jesus. On Thursday, students went to the mountain of Gerês and tried traditional games developing a competition, photo paper (a kind of game of adventure and hunting of the picture inside the nature), Adventure camp (tree climbing) and visited the museum of Gerês, where it was explained all the specific areas of Gerês as well as all biological species and different rocks.
How did the participation in this activity benefit the involved participants?
Participants benefited from a very comprehensive experience in the field of sport, well-being and health. In fact ,experimenting mindfulness practices, as a strategy to manage stress in everyday life, exploring and performing simple traditional games, which are suitable for family time and nature, learning about the techniques of vitamin improvement in food processing, finding out about writing and painting strategies aiming relaxation, allowed them to realize they have a wide range of activities to choose from, as a means of managing their well-being, whether in their school or family life.
During mobility C3 students were taught how to practice mindfulness and encouraged to do it. They were invited to listen to a song and read its lyrics as a mindful moment. After that they made two groups and danced with the orientation of a Physical Education Teacher, who is an expert in mindful activities. Students had the opportunity to learn some strategies for relaxing, making specific noises and movements. They also learned how to paint Mandalas, as a relaxing technic, and created a colourful panel.
The objectives of these activities:
improving a sense of well-being
learning how to focus your attention
being more able to observe one’s own thoughts, emotions and physical sensations
understanding the causes of the stress and learning how to be able to manage, stress, anxiety and low mood
benefitting from informal mindfulness practices like mindful colouring, walking and listening
One of the objectives of the project was spreading awareness about the impact of the proper diet on people’s health. In order to learn more about research, during mobility C3, hosted by Agrupamento de Escolas de Amares in Portugal, students visited INL (,) a highly considered laboratory all over Europe because of its goal in the research and technology activities specially focused on six clusters: Health, Food, Energy, Environment, ICT and Future Emerging Technologies, which complement each other, and provide a base for interdisciplinary interactions among researchers. The full-fledged nanotechnology laboratory enables leading research of the highest international standard. The more exploited cluster was the food one and it was explained to students how to increase and protect vitamins and minerals in comestibles. Therefore, students could see how nanotechnology can help in creating Nano capsules to preserve vitamins to be integrated in aliments/ food/ people’s diet.
During the mobility C3, hosted by Agrupamento de Escolas de Amares in Portugal,as a reflexive activity, in order to develop their creativity and communication in the language of the project, the students created Haikus, that is, small poems, based on a Japanese technique, related to well-being and nature, creating thematic posters using the web tool 2.0 „Canva”. These posters were printed and exhibited in the school by the end of the activity.
The objectives of the activity:
improving language skills. The process of writing poetry can build vocabulary. …
Not only did students benefit from the project, the teachers did either. We learned a lot since for some time we had to quit all the traditional methods and learn how to deal with the virtual reality. We managed to do it and, moreover, we decided to share our finding with other teachers. Gathering all our findings, observations and experiences gained during virtual meetings we decided to develop our own guide over tried-out solutions and IC tools which were applied for different activities. It is not a ICT guide sensu stricte. Some tips for using tools are included, but it is supposed to inspire rather than be a manual.
The objectives of publishing this guide:
encouraging the wide spread of ideas
sharing good practices
disseminating information about some tools to the community
encouraging virtual collaboration
disseminating results produced throughout the duration of the project
extending the frontiers of creativity and imagination
inspiring those who want to organize virtual or blended mobilities but don’t know how to start it.
Throughout the almost whole school year, once a week, students from the 6th grade had ESL lessons, during which they read passages from books in English. We read extracts from the most popular books for children, like Harry Potter, Whimpy Kid, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, etc. Students read the texts, listened to the recordings and did a lot of lexical and creative activities, like drawing comics, building Lego constructions, playing games, developing stories, solving puzzles, writing poems or making models.
The objectives of the activities:
improving literacy, developing language competences
increasing general knowledge about the world
promoting reading as a stress relieving activity
modelling behaviour
increasing creativity and imagination
building a sense of empathy
improving concentration
enhancing reading enjoyment
All the resources used during these activities were gathered in one padlet collection:
