Kategoria: Interact

Parents’ School

You need a special license to drive a car. How come you aren’t obliged to pass an exam to become a parent? To help some parents who feel they need some guidance on bringing their children up, the psychologists from our school organized the workshops. Parents, who attended the course wanted to learn how to accompany children as they grow up, how to build mutual trust and prepare their offspring for tackling problems.

The objectives of this 30-hour course:

  • studying the different developmental stages of children
  • teaching how to  build a strong and secure relationship 
  • teaching parents how to set boundaries
  • teaching how to shape their children’s sense of self-worth and competency
  • showing how to create an environment in which understanding, trust, and respect can flourish
  • demonstrating strategies for solving conflicts
  • teaching how to deal with a failure
  • helping how to handle anger safely and healthily

The parents who took part in the workshops were really satisfied as the content lived up to their expectations.

Traditional games

A collection of rules for traditional games still played, from time to time, in our countries, was prepared as a common product, presented and tried out during a students’ exchange in Portugal. The students explained the rules of the games their parents enjoyed playing outdoors when they were at their children’s age and they had fun together.

The objectives of the activity:

  • encouraging children to spend time outside
  • developing language skills while delivering instructions
  • acquiring social skills and peer-to-peer relationships
  • improving physical health
  • boosting creativity
  • strengthening motor skills
  • learning about other cultures
  • showing respect for traditional games as cultural heritage.

Summing up the project by the Italian team

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

Wellness and nature

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.

E-guide for teachers

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.

Here you may download the guide:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1dzpiy_KE4MkAvOijTa9ILhsxSdfYdYEJ/view?usp=sharing

Good manners – make life easier for others

Life becomes less stressful if you know the rules of how to deal with some situations in different places. To understand how important some informal regulations are we made a list of all the places where they are especially significant. They took part in a quiz about customs trying to guess where the rules are obeyed, afterwards we discussed the differences between mustn’t and shouldn’t or have to and should and after that the students in groups made their own lists of rules for different places in which one should be careful and know how to act. Next, they designed their own leaflets with rules which should be followed in some chosen by them places. The younger students celebrated ‚Good Manners Day. They studied some typical situations and decided if the person presented behaves well or badly. Next, they created images depicting examples of good and bad behaviour.

The objectives of the activities:

  • making students believe that positive behaviour is a life skill and that should be taught
  • spreading awareness of the impact of some rules on our well -being and self confidence
  • understanding that everyone should respect other people’s rights and privacy
  • naming the rules of proper and not so proper conduct
  • learning how to behave in a considerate way 
  • realizing that in case you don’t know how to behave you should behave decently, not hurting anyone.

After-school activities

It took us two months to prepare presenting the effects of all these extra, time-consuming and heavy work activities in the limelight. In order to:

  • introduce some relaxing after school activities,
  • provide the students with the chance to extend their learning beyond the formal curriculum
  • expose children to new experiences, ideas, and perspectives beyond their everyday school lives
  • provide them with the chance to manage stress related to performing in public
  • enable students working in a team,
  • give the students an opportunity to socialize, develop new skills, such as acting, performing, creating, designing and sewing
  • promote our school and the project

we scheduled extra drama and sewing classes. Not only did the students attend them, but also the teachers. Finally all the guests invited to the school festival could see the final product, which was the play written and performed by the school community.

What makes you relaxed?

School, school, after-SCHOOL activities, before SCHOOL activities. A vicious circle of school-related terms. What makes you feel relaxed? What can let you forget about the troubles, expectations, duties and obligations? Everyone has got their own ways to cope with daily problems. Children started from brain-storming for all the ideas of passing free time. They began from the conventional ones, but afterwards more specific pastimes appeared on the common mind map. After the discussion and learning some new vocabulary they made their own mind maps on posters in groups and afterwards, using https://wordart.com the children made their own, individual lists of things which make them not feeling worried and then created the word clouds in pictures symbolizing leisure for them.

The objectives of the activity:

  • introducing new vocabulary, related to pastimes and interests
  • recognizing the difference between obligations and leisure time
  • realizing when you have too much stress and you need to relax
  • finding common activities which make you and your friends relaxed
  • recognizing one’s own needs and one’s own individuality

Welcome to Alquerias!

Finally, after two years we could meet again. The schedule of short terms exchanges of groups of pupils was turned upside down though, because we restarted the project from the last planned mobility C8 in Alquerias. Apart from that, everything went according to the plan. The superior topic of the mobility was food and influence of a right diet on our functioning, our lifestyle and achieving life goals. The activities which the students took part in involved:

  • presentations of the schools
  • introduction games
  • cooking workshops
  • sports routine
  • visit to a local manufacturer of citrus fruits
  • studying healthy dietary habits and making presentations about common diets
  • a visit to open-air marches and talking about food typical in the area
  • creating a Kahoot game

Apart from the activities planned in the frame of the project’s objectives the students visited also the most famous places in the area to learn about Spanish culture and history and their paid a visit in the town mayor office. They did enjoy their stay in Murcia and Alquerias.

Virtual mobility

After agreeing on the date and length of the meeting to suit each of the partner schools, we decided to organize a video conference. Each school gathered a team of 8 – 12 students eager to meet their friends from other countries. Google meet platform was used to get in touch before and set up all the details and for the meeting itself, taking place on 20thof May 2021. The schedule of the video conference looked as follows: 

Schedule of activities 

  • Introducing teams
  • Taking group photos by the padlet 
  • Healthy habits – brainstorming 
  • What do you know about the country the wheel decide picked for you 
  • Name 5 – a team contest 
  • What have you got for breakfast? Interviewing partners.
  • Kahoot – a general knowledge quiz (each country prepared the questions) 
  • Draw your lunch and breakfast using Jamboard 
  • Healthy tips – how important are they for you – discussing ideas and uploading them on Mentimeter 

Unfortunately, due to technical problems and safety regulations at schools we were unable to let our students interview each other as we had planned before. Nevertheless, students could see each other, take part in games prepared together. They could confront their conceptions of healthy lifestyle, find out what they knew about their partner countries, compete in quizzes. We could compare what we conceive of breakfasts and school lunches as all the participants were expected to draw them and label them on the common virtual board. First of all, however, it was a two-hour distraction from the school routine and a chance to ties bonds between the partners.