Our project concentrates on basic skills, to help teachers to find the best methods to help students to develop and use their basic skills. Through that we hope to improve students' success in school and prevent early school leaving. Our target group is students in the age of 6-12. The curriculum of that age is already quite intensive and we need to help the students to cope with that. In our partner schools we have many students with a different mother tongue, we are going to have more and more multilingual schools in the future. Therefore we want to share out good practice of the use of Content and Language Integrated Learning (CLIL). Within our project we are going to collect and try our the best methods connected to five basic skills from each partner country to improve the level of teaching in our partner schools. With the activities we are going to carry out, we want our students to focus on the European dimension. We expect the students to develop an understanding across European cultures through our activities. Working towards a common goal together with hundreds of other European children can make them feel more a part of European identity. It is very important for children from distant regions. We believe that all the methods will give the pupils the means to work in their own ways and adjust their ways of working. In addition to raise the European identity, many of our activities will also increase the local identity because students are presenting their local daily lives.
As it is clearly important that every person and community works to sustain and improve their educational environment it was agreed that the innovative theme of "I C U" (I See You) would provide a wider issue of motivating children to take responsibility of their own learning, and of self - evaluation. That requires new methods and new thinking about teaching. About 2100 pupils /200 teachers will take part. We are going to carry out several activities using different methods. The project will be integrated into the curricula of maths, national language, English, maths, art, history,science.
A1: making the puppets with national identity;
A2:making a DVD presentation of school and the area;
A3:compiling and carry on a questionnaire for students about partner countries to find out how much do our students know about partner countries.
A4:Another questionnaire is going to be carried out on teachers to find out about the methods they use for teaching basic skills.
A5:Celebrating the European day of languages on the 29th of Sept.
A6:Create an Erasmus + Corner in each school.
M1: a kick-off meeting in Norway to evaluate the questionnaires, set plans for collecting and trying out the methods. We are doing project risk handling, going to agree upon trying out of the methods, evaluating the methods and project activities. Sharing our methods to teach oral skills; first exchange of puppets.
December 2015-January 2016:
A7:trying out the methods of oral skills;
A8: performing Christmas act to introduce Christmas traditions with the help of puppets.
M2: project meeting in Finland. We evaluated the methods of oral skills and shared the methods of numeracy. We observed the Finish lesson with the use of ICT and outdoor learning; second exchange of the puppets.
A9:trying out the methods of numeracy; How to use problem solving in everyday math, related to money, measurement, cooking, time, distance, sports, calculations - "European market ".
M3: project meeting in Estonia. We are going to evaluate the methods of numeracy and share the methods of reading. Estonian school introduces the innovative use of ICT and educational technologies. Celebrating the European day on the 9th of May. Third exchange of puppets.
A10: trying out the methods of reading. "Reason to read" - we are going to carry out a reading competition between the participating schools. We are going to have a test on reading speed before and after the competition. The competition concerns time spent. Methods of reading concerning critical reading, digital reading, variety of literature.
M4:project meeting in Spain. We are going to evaluate the methods of reading and share the methods of writing. Celebrating the European day of languages on the 29th of Sept. Spanish school is introducing their good practice of Content and Language Integrated Learning (CLIL). Fourth exchange of the puppets.
A11:trying out the methods of writing. "Continuous story" - every school starts with one chapter of a book. Then we will send it to a next country, they will read the chapter and continue with a next chapter. Then send to next country, they will write next chapter. After finishing with the 7th chapter, the book returns home. Other aspects of writing: words of the day, word games, use writing to describe learning, create book/newspaper, write with different tools, publish work in the local newspaper.
M5: project meeting in Finland. We are going to evaluate the methods of writing and share the methods of teaching ICT skills. Finnish school is going to present their good practice of the use of ICT. Fifth exchange of puppets.
A12: trying out the methods of ICT skills. We are going to have video meetings through Skype. We are going to teach the popular children song "Are You sleeping" in our native languages and sing together. Games, presentation about countries.
M6: project meeting in Poland. We are going to evaluate the methods of teaching ICT skills. We choose the best methods of each basic skill and start compiling the toolbox. Polish school presents their good practice of integrated classes of both weak and good students. The sixth exchange of the puppets.
A13:compiling the toolbox, carrying out the questionnaire for students and teachers to find out how much do the students know now about the partner countries and what methods are the teachers going to use from the toolbox.
A14: Celebrating the European day on the 9th of May
M7: project meeting in Croatia. Evaluating the project, the questionnaires. Finish of the Toolbox, everyone will get their toolbox to take back home. Puppets return home. We start writing the final report.