It was the activity for the younger learners. We were dealing with the sports vocabulary and the question: ‚Can you …?’. When students learned sport disciplines by heart and they were able to use ‚Can you’ freely, I decided to split them into groups, each group drew one group of sports (street sports, water sports, team sports, etc) out of the hat and they made a set of questions about ability to do these sports. Next they went to interview their friends from other classes and older. Finally, they had to sum up all the positive answers and made posters with bar charts. It was quite a good combination of English, maths, getting familiar with other pupils, team work and designing. And it goes without saying that an impressive number of students could do the sports and probably they were quite good at them.
In Primary School nr 35 Gdańsk as part of one of the Erasmus + projects, I conducted lessons about sports. In both, I introduced the vocabulary of winter activities, working simultaneously with the applications Buncee (creating presentations), Quiver (augmented reality) and Flipgrid (recording short films).
In the third grade, we practiced the I like / I don’t like structure for selected winter sports:
students printed selected winter sports on printed sheets for reading the Quiver application (printout from the Quiver page)
we saw the created drawings in augmented reality with the Quiver application on the phone.
pupils in pairs practiced the constructions I like / I don’t like / Do you like?
In class zero I used Buncee presentations and we recorded a video on Flipgrid.
I prepared a presentation about winter activities. During the display in the lesson, the immersion reader application read the pronunciation of the words.
We repeated listening / reading / pronunciation several times.
I asked the children to choose and remember their favorite activity (What is your favorite winter activity?)
Children had the task to draw their favorite activity on a piece of paper.
The children presented / expressed their activity to 3 selected colleagues.
Sitting in a circle on the carpet (easier recording), after several attempts, I recorded children’s statements in the Flipgrid application. https://flipgrid.com/bd86d560
We are all aware of the importance of environment and relationships and their impacts on children’s gaining their life skills. IC Diotti school collected the data and explored what constitutes an amiable learning environment which is ready for and welcomes pupils. They studied how how providing proper conditions and adjusting it to their needs we can more effectively support children’s self-regulation, and make them more efficient in guiding their behaviour.
Disrespect and feeling unsafe — are one of the crucial factors for school and home stress. Self-esteem ranks really high as people, regardless of their age, gender and race value dignity and respect most. School – related stress trigerred by lack of respect and security may have an extremely destroying effect and it is said to have increased in the past few decades. Thus, students participating in this performance tried to defeat criminal acting and sustain the process of responsible civic behaviour.
In order to
find out which food is good and nutritious for teenagers two classes took part
in a mini-project Go!Slow!No!. The 4th class started from
learning vocabulary. The children, split into groups of three, worked with food
cards. They were supposed to find between them the ones which contained carbs,
proteins, vitamins and fats. They also recognized and discussed the roles of all
the main macronutrients and vitamins. Afterwards, each group received one index
card with the information about them and had to present it in a graphic way on
the poster.
The objectives of the activity:
Categorizing
all the food cards in 3 basic nutrients group
Presenting
on the plate what the accurate proportions of the main nutrients groups are: 65
% carbohydrates, 25%proteins and 20% fats
Making
‘vitamin boards’ and presenting food which is particularly rich in them
Drawing
a table with ‘don’t worry, go ahead’ food, ‘carefully with that’ food and
‘under no condition’ food
Building
a healthy fit person out of food cards and
obese, consisting of fast food one.
Additionally, we measured the content of sugar in the most common snacks and drinks. To visualize the amount of saccharine we presented it using sugar cubes and displayed bags with packages, sugar cubes and measurement calculations on the board in the hall. It did attract the attention. Probably also some thinking. Below, the link to the materials and worksheets used during the workshops.
We are proud to announce that the logo of the ASAP project has been chosen. The winning logo was drawn by an Italian student – Costanza Allodi from IC Diotti in Casamaggiore in Italy. Congratulations! Each school submitted 5 best logos designed by its students and afterwards, both students and teachers voted for one depicting in the best possible way our common ideas, objectives and intentions.
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.
The aim of this locally organized activity, taking place in the time preceding the mobility in Poland, was having our students present their favourite ways of letting the steam off, the leisure activities they enjoy most and find the most relaxing. Since they were given a choice of the tool they were going to use to present themselves, they made posters, presentations or collages. The best works were also uploaded on the project TwinSpace.
We become not a melting pot but a beautiful mosaic. Different people, different beliefs, different yearnings, different hopes, different dreams.
As we were told, stress is everywhere. It lurks in the wings sometimes attacks suddenly, but it also motivates us to harder work, pushes us to reach our goals and sometimes helps us accomplish our tasks efficiently. It is always the matter of the appropriate attitude, ability to manage the pressure and relieve stress when it is necessary. We all need some stress-relieving activities. To make the podcast, students researched for the following information:
Ways to relieve stress and anxiety
Short term stress-relief strategies which can be done anywhere
Long term stress-relief strategies for lasting health
On the whole our schools are not user-friendly places. Regardless of the location, across Europe, we tend to perceive them as hostile and oppressive buildings and places. In order to define what their weakest points are and what demends improvement, students took part in a debate. They listed the shortcomings first:
too crammed classrooms, too much furniture and not enough space to walk and move
tables and chairs in poor condition, not comfortable enough
too much teachers’ rubbish!
decorations are boring and hardly ever updated
poor lightning
narration as the main teaching strategy
not working clocks
too much copying
only one message board in the school
teacher’s-centred lessons prevail over student’s-centred classes
What are the students’ expectations:
less crowded classes
more spacious classrooms
decorations changed frequently, displaying students’ works and projects
designing one classroom for projects and team work
special area for silent relax
more comfortable desks and chairs
doing things and performing rather than copying and listening
some additional information boards, classrooms are better labelled
tablets used on a daily basis
more games, performances, events which would truly engage the students
appreciating their initiativeness
During the mobility the students attended the lecture delivered by Adam Parzyński, the headteacher of Primary School no 27 in Gdansk, the school leading in the city in terms of initiativeness and resourcefulness. He presented us some of the ideas of using the space wisely and effectively, relying on students’ skills and their creativity. Afterwards students made their own projects of ideal classrooms and they recorded the podcast on making a school more favourable place. They researched for the information in the following areas:
