http://issuu.com/aurelija1957/docs/meeting_in_latvija

Last school year our young pupils enjoyed working on eTwinning project “Primary students experiment, observe, investigate and create“ and had partners from Spain and Iceland. This project was so interesting, modern and useful that we decided to expand it and became as eTwinning-Norplus Project. Schools from Estonia - Tallinna kindergarten and Latvia - Skujene Pamatskola became our partners and project activities are done now not only online but in reality too.

Before the first meeting in Vest Skujene School, Latvia, we, teachers and pupils, got introduced each other on skype and eagerly were waiting for the real meeting.  With the help of pupils‘ parents we went to visit our Latvian partners. The journey was long, children admired the wonderful nature. When we finally reached our journey destination, we saw Latvian‘s school headmaster and some pupils dressed in Latvian national costumes waiting for us outside the school. The school headmaster Anda couldn‘t remember when was the last time when so many people were in this small school: 50 Latvians – teachers and pupils, 4 Estonian teachers, 42 Lithuanian pupils and 7 their teachers. In Latvia pupils from Latvia and Lithuania performed a wonderful concert, they sang, danced, talked to each other,  played various games. The hosts prepared for children a very interesting entertaining program. We visited one of the oldest Latvian town Cesis, its mediterranean castle.

The most impressive for children was the visit to educational centre ZINOO (http://www.zinoo.lv/). It seemed that this centre was held just especially for our project. There the children got acquainted with the various laws of nature: felt the taste of gravity, understood and felt the force of friction while running special karting, saw and felt the power of lightining. Children learned that in order to lift 1 tonne rocket into the air, it is necessary to use 20 tons of fuel. Wow. But even more impressive was when children made rockets themselves and put them in a 5-storey height of the house. Strenght. The children weren‘t able to believe what was going.

Only late in the evening Lithuanian pupils went home. Teachers Diana, Aurelija and Ingrida stayed there for 5 days to work on project activities. They conducted lessons, shared their pedagogical  experience with project partner teachers. The Vest Skujene School is located between the forests and fields so it was very difficult to reach this school from the hotel (35 km) because there are no public transport to this village. So our teachers had to hire a car, to upload GPS programs on their phones and learn how to use them.

Lithuanian teachers conducted lessons to Latvian pupils, made paper, did some experiments with it, with flowers and colours in the milk, proved that a human being has electricity, made dolls and candles. Teacher Aurelija taught other partner teachers how to use the newest Twinspace, its tools. There was held a project presentation and all partner school presentations to Latvian school community. As the symbols of the project were chosen a hand-lens and a butterfly net.

The next project meeting we are planning to organise in Estonia in spring. Now all partner children are working on creating a project Logo.The first project meeting was successful and it was very difficult to say goodbye. We are very glad that in these modern times we can meet online. We have to continue working on planned project activities.