There is no such thing as bad weather, only inappropriate clothing

I spent seven days in Sintra, Portugal, attending the course on outdoor education and multisensory learning. 

Time: July 2018             Weather: perfect          Mood: motivated to learn

Day one

After some warm up activities we talked about senses in general, shared what we know about the topic, how we deal with it at our schools back home and we watched a documentary "The brain with David Eagleman - What is Reality" - BBC Documentary (2016). We talked about our schools and presented our countries. In pairs we had a task to prepare a meal blindfold. It was a great experience.

Day two

The most important activity was a workshop on how to enrich our lessons with multisensory techniques. We spent a lot of time immersed in nature recognizing sounds, smell, we touched things... We had to create our personal multisensory maps.

Day three

We learned about Howard Gardner's theory of multiple intelligences. And also about many methods we can use. One of them is Learning Cafe Method. There was also a test we took that revealed our relationship with the natural environment (CNS test).

Day four
We played Fruit bowl as a warm up. Then we watched a film Indoor Generation. We made a map with our bodies and also had to make a map of our countries with as little material as possible. Later we brought the outside inside and managed to be creative and we used leaves, branches, flowers and so on to come up with a tree as a result. In the evening a cultural evening was held and we tasted different food. Each one of us brought something typical to represent their country.

Day five

We spent the whole day outside. We planted a garden  together and visited a national park. We did some tasks like Step forward and those ona a string /rope.

Day six

We spent a cultural day in Sintra, saw Regaleira Palace, Boca de Inferno, Cabo da Roca. We learned to value the benefits of deap breathing and meditating as ways of connecting with nature and concentrating.

Day seven

We did some stretching, showed/talked about our emotions using dice.We learned about Drama method, New Classroom friend, Diary method and so on. I shared some great activities on our page Sharing is caring and on our web page. Hope they will be useful.

Conclusion: It was an unforgettable experience. I made new friends, became more confident in using Englsh, I became a richer person because of all the sights, experience and methods that are now ready-to-use in my classroom . There is a big schoolyard around my school. I work in a village school and I am happy to be able to apply all the skills I acquired on the course during the new school year and to share my knowledge with my colleagues.

                                                                                  Andreja Adžić