Arezzo, Italy

14 - 16 May 2019

A three-day meeting of the students and teachers from the partner schools took place in Arezzo from 14th to 16th May 2019. It was the second meeting of the students and the accompanying teachers engaged in the Erasmus + project „Famous painters among us”.

The first day the children from Aliotti school welcomed warmly our lovely visitors from The Czech Republic, Poland and Slovakia. They showed them around the school. Our guests visited each classroom, introduced themselves and exchanged some gifts with our students.

All the children had a snack together and spent some free time playing in the schoolyard during the recess.

After the break, we all assembled at the school theatre where the groups of children introduced their country of origins, their schools and some other fascinating facts about their lives.

Next, the children formed four international teams. The communication language was English. Each group received only the parts of the ten paintings which they then had to match with the names of their most likely authors.

The last activity was to create a portrait inspired by the work of Pablo Picasso. Each team had to create one picture only. We used the principles of cooperative learning in this activity. 

The visiting children spent their afternoon together with our Italian families. They all had a lot of fun.

The second day we spent the morning preparing for the exhibition of the paintings we had been working on during the school year. The children planned their speeches, design picture frames, hung the pictures on the wall etc.

The exhibition itself took place in the afternoon. The attendance was above our expectations, and it was a huge success. The mayor of Arezzo was present and welcomed our visitors. In exchange, he received some traditional gifts from the teachers of the participating countries. The children spoke briefly about the techniques they used to paint their works of art. They also said a few words about the artist whose picture they had painted. We all had an exciting time.

The next day our visitors and some Italian students visited the Uffizi Gallery in Florence. We had a chance to see the most beautiful paintings in the history of art from artists such as Leonardo da Vinci, Sandro Botticelli or Michelangelo. It was an overwhelming experience for our children and teachers. Thanks to an excellent guide, we could learn about the meanings of these paintings. Also, we learnt about the history of the Uffizi Gallery itself. After the quick lunch, we explored the beautiful streets of Florence and saw many impressive statues, and we admired the renaissance architecture of the city.
We concluded the day with dinner all together. The real Italian pizza was on the menu. It seemed like everybody enjoyed eating it.
We were happy to welcome our new friends at our school and in our small but lovely town. We are looking forward to meeting all of them soon.