Avoid Stress. Achieve Purpose. ASAP – Strona 2

A visit to International Nanotechnology Laboratory

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.

Haiku poems

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. …
expanding vocabulary and world views
sparking creative thinking.
building self-awareness
expressing emotions
developing sensitivity
reflecting on one’s experiences
developing mindfulness skills

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

Reading for just 6 minutes can reduce stress levels by up to 68%

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:

https://padlet.com/tambelli_sylwia/mo9efju9nkusotrl

Fruit/Sport/Art

How to combine sport activities with healthy food and art? Yes, you can – create photos integrating pieces of fruit or vegetables in a picture presenting a sport discipline. To perform this activity we designed an inspirational presentation – made of pictures published to web. Having watched a video children chose fruit which seemed inspirational for them and created their own artful pictures. All the pictures (well, almost all…) were arranged in a professional way in a virtual gallery.

The objectives of the activity:

developing creativity and imagination
demonstrating innovation in concept
improve the children’s ability to control materials and techniques
cultivating an enjoyment and appreciation of the visual arts
promoting healthy lifestyle

The link to the virtual gallery:

https://www.artsteps.com/view/602d680bfc99b16fd6daf269?currentUser

School festival

To disseminate and promote the products and an idea of the project we established an exhibition and a ‚healthy lifestyle’ stall at the school festival – an annual event, during which pupils, students from all grades, teachers, parents and inhabitants of the neighbourhood can visit the school and de-stress by participating in activities of different themes. Many of the products, such as posters, bookmarks, games and photos were displayed. Two experts in healthy everyday living, Anna Walentukiewicz, from University of Sport Education and Magdalena Dworniczak, running FitKid foundation, provided healthy-lifestyle counselling and advised attenders on how to change their habits and avoid risk factors.

The objectives of the event:

encouraging people to have healthy lifestyles
recognizing that modifiable lifestyle factors
making healthier diet choices,
realizing an importance of getting regular exercise,
learning how to manage stress and organize calming environment at home
learning how to adopt physical activity as a lifestyle

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.

Meeting with a star

How to achieve success in sport becomes a really important question when you attend a sports school and you are surrounded by people like you, wanting to become stars. To answer questions like that, our Team for Health Promotion invited a special guest – Martyna Borysławska, who is currently a handball player for a national team. Additionally, children took part in other sport activities.

The objectives of the event:

understanding the role of the motivation in achieving success
recognizing the role of well – being and a proper diet for an athlete
teaching children why and how to value learning new skills
understanding that sometimes it is the process not the outcome that counts

Children did have fun, asking questions, absorbing some vital tips as well as taking part in all the games and tournaments.

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.

That’s me!

A sense of individuality and a sense of self-esteem are both the most determining factors in how children feel, think, behave, and motivate themselves in the world. If children believe in themselves and they are able to recognize their skills they can take positive actions on their own behalf and approach life obstacles as challenges to accept and cope with. To learn how to manage these skills, during English classes and form periods 4th Grade children, using visual materials talked about their skills and competences. After that they prepared a survey about abilities and carried it out asking other pupils what they can do. They calculated the results and presented them on graphs. Afterwards they depicted the features characteristic for them.

The objectives of the activities: