Sunday

We were happy to meet again. This time it was the Italian group's turn to travel by bus for nearly 20 hours. They left Portogruaro at midnight and arrived in Wilhelmshaven in the evening. We spent the first evening with the families, this time in Wilhelmshaven, talking, eating at home or going to a restaurant.

Monday

Today we met all together in school. It was nice to see everybody again.

We were introduced into the activities of the week. 

ppt1 - introduction to activities of the week.pdf

We had two main tasks for this meeting:

- to share and compare our results of the texts of WebQuest 2 and to develop an activity based on some of the texts we had translated and analysed; we could chose between "developing a choreography" and "develop an escape room".

- to document the activities of the week - this time not by photography, but by sketching and writing  small poems.

In the evening there was a small "opening ceremony" for the Erasmus+ students and teachers from Italy and Germany, the parents and families. The "music branch" from class 9 had prepared some medieval music and a small theatre piece which should inspirate us for our task "developing a choreography for a medieval poem".

The Italian students had prepared music, too: "Ave, Maria" - Latin words, brought to music by Austrian composer Franz Schubert and - presenting Italian music tradition and culture - Puccini's "O mio babbino caro". It was a perfect introduction to the topic of our project week. But, first of all, it was a fascinating artistic presentation! We all were carried away by Alessia's fantastic voice and Andrea who was accompanying her on the piano.

(Andrea at the piano and Alessia singing - sketched by Margherita)

Here are some impressions from the rehearsals in the afternoon:

rehearsal music.mp3

rehearsal music 2.mp3

Tuesday

During the first two lessons of the day the Italian students could experience school reality in Germany. They accompanied their partners to their lessons.

The we met at "Südstrand" ("South beach"): We already had explored Portogruaro together. Now it was time to explore Wilhelmshaven as well.

Portogruaro and Wilhelmshaven are very different cities: one old and full of traces of Roman and medieval time, the other founded only in the 19th century, mainly as a naval base.

In the "Waddensea visitor centre" we learned more about the Unesco world heritage "Wadden sea", the region of the German partners.

The students from Portogruaro weren't the first persons from Italy who came to Frisia and the area of the Frisian islands. Pliny the Elder (who was one of the authors from our -> first WebQuest of the Italian Erasmus+ team), too, had seen and described this region. So we started our visit with his report:

Plinius Maior.pdf

Filippo reads Pliny about life in Frisia.mp3

We got some more information about Wilhelmshaven by visiting the museum of the navy ("Deutsches Marinemuseum"):

(Andrea, Elia, Mascha and Oliver going on board)

After this we had some free time. Some Italian-German groups went to the local shopping "mall", some staid at the "South beach" and had lunch there.

In then afternoon we were busy again in school. We had a small theatre exercise and then we worked on the choreography and the escape rooms.

Wednesday

In the morning we worked on our tasks in Italian-German groups and tried to finish as much as possible.

We were also introduced to the activities for the next day:

- the focus of our guided tour

- life and work of Paula Modersohn-Becker, a young female artist who painted culture (the hard daily life of poor people cultivated the bog near Bremen to survive) and nature (the "Teufelsmoor" - trees and animals of the moor):

ppt 4 - Paula Modersohn Becker.pdf

- life and work of Eva Besnyö, a female Hungarian photographer of the 1930ies who showed life and free time of ordinary people. There were some similarities between our own photos from Aquileia and the technique of Eva Besnyö:

Wednesday afternoon was the so called "family day" of our project week in Wilhelmshaven.  We had time to be together with our Italian partners and to show them what we do when we meet friends in our town. Most of us met in small groups. As there was the "Spring fair" in our town, most of us went to it to ride on the roller coaster and other merry-go-rounds. Some of us had dancing classes in the afternoon and this was also an activity which we shared with our partners as some of them also are active dancers.  Most of us met in the evening in a diner to eat something. After this we finished the day in the local laser-tag-arena and played some rounds of laser-tag which was much fun for the guests. We all had a good time together.

(Knud)

Thursday

The educational trip to Bremen started with a guided tour through the historical centre of the town.

The main focus was on Bremen in the middle ages (connected to -> our WebQuests) and on Bremen as commercial town of the "Hanseatic league".

We passed the small houses of the "Schnoor" and finally entered the "Böttcher street" with its museums of art.

Here started our activity "sketching".

Each student choose three photos and three paintings which he / she (a) liked most (b) found especially interesting or (c) surprising and told the reason. Then, he / she had an more accurate look on one picture of each artist and sketching it so that the sketch shows how the picture / photo is composed.

(Mascha sketching Paula Modersohn-Becker's "Girl with the tigerlilies and Eva Besnyö's "summerhouse")

There was also a period for free time activities. Some students went shopping, some visited another museum, the "Universum" and some remained some more time in the gallery or had a coffee together.

Friday

We finished our activities, combined our sketches and lyrics into small leporelli which the younger students from class 7 had prepared and we rehearsed for the evening. 

In the evening, we presented the results of this week to the parents and families.

(to see the choreography of "O fortuna" of the "Carmina Burana" and other results which the German-Italian groups developed during this meeting: follow -> this link)

The meeting ended with a buffet and disco for which we changed the assembly hall into a dancing place.

And then, Saturday morning at 6am, it was time to say "Good bye" again! Until september.