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.
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. …
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.
Learning the basic yoga rules in two hours’ time seems impossible and it is impossible as it usually takes years. However, it is good to try, understand what it is about and find out what benefits of yoga are:
better flexibility
gaining peace of mind
building strength of muscles
improving one’s posture
preventing spine diseases
increasing heart rate and blood flow
helping you to concentrate and focus your attention
improving consciousness
The students, taking part in a short mobility in Alquerias in Spain took part in yoga workshops during which they learned some simplified yoga poses for beginners and they were encouraged how and why they can do it on their own.
A healthy diet can help you maintain a proper body weight, reduce your risk of certain diseases and improve your quality of life. However, there is no universal diet, common, easy to follow and recommendable for everyone, regardless of their place of living, gender, daily activity and likings. We have to know the rationale of each diet, their pros and cons and it is important to choose a diet plan that fits our goals and lifestyles. During the mobility in Alquerias, in Spain, the students developed the rules for some, most popular diets. They discussed their does and don’ts, as well as benefits and risks and designed leaflets.
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.
The first meeting of students took place in Gdansk from 9th to 13th of December 2019. We started from ice breaking activities as to get off to a good start and get familiar with each other. Students had to mix up in different groups regardless of their nationality to carry out different kinds of tasks proposed by the hosting teachers. They had to resolve some puzzles and riddles related to the project in within the framework of an “Escape Room” game, which they found really fun and useful to foster teamwork and exchange their first moments with their counterparts. As the final tasks they had to use their own bodies to form the acronym of the title of the project.
After that, students had to perform a singing of Christmas carols that had been previously practiced in every country before the visit to Poland in front of the vice president of the city, who had the courtesy to come to the school to meet us.
After that all the students were split into groups. Some of them did the zumba dance and played team sports, others made Christmas decorations, wooden boards with some peaceful messages on them. To sum the first day up we played Kahoot checking our knowledge of European history and geography.
Next day students took part in the sketchnotes workshop, delivered by Vitia Bartosova – Hoffman and they learned hot to illustrate their ideas, emotions and make clear visual notes.
After that students attended the workshop about time managing while others participated in the discussion about ideal school, what they should be like and what can be done to improve them and make them less stressful places. Trying to sum up what they learned the students designed their own dream classrooms and ‚manage time wisely’ reminders. We finished the day with ice skating. For some it was the first time they had ever skated. And they did it well!
The next day was the day out. We took our guests to Centre Experyment in Gdynia to let them see the most high tech science centre in the north of Poland. This modern building with an area of 3,500 sq. m houses four permanent exhibitions: Hydroworld (hydrology), The Tree of Life (nature), Operation: Human (physiology and medicine) and Invisible Forces (physics). The exhibitions feature over 150 advanced, interactive items which invite experimenting and learning about scientific curiosities. After the visit we went to Gdansk to visit Amber Museum and stroll down the streets of the Old Town.
On Thursday we dealt with stress, its origins, causes, symptoms and ways of coping with it. After the workshops students made sketchnotes illustrating the the stress and its chronic consequences as well as ways of preventing or managing it.
When this workshop ended, they attended to a class focused on how to preserve the proper body posture, especially when using their mobile phones of carrying their school bags to avoid pain and damage. To remember how to maintain the proper posture they designed their own handouts with the photos of does and doesn’ts. In order to find out the most suitable learning style and the kind of dominating intelligence they participated in the multiply intelligence workshop.
At the end of the day, the hosts organized a farewell party at school, in which the students were able to share their last moments together having fun, exchanging impressions and listening and dancing with music from the four countries.
As final activity, students had to record a podcast about
all the issues they had been working on during all the week. The topics to be
put across were the negative effects of the stress, anti-stress activities, how
to learn effectively, the ideal classroom and how to manage their time. They
were divided in groups, they revised the topics, wrote the script and recorded
the opening for the podcast and its content. All these was conducted and
revised by the teachers all the time, to ensure that the topics were fully
covered and that this product of the project met the expectations.
At the end of the day, there was a final meeting in the
Erasmus+ hall with all the students to share opinions and asses the experience
and their contribution to the objectives of the project. To finish they were
awarded with a certificate for their participation in this mobility.
