Culture for Kids- Beyond the Textbook Erasmus Project

Project Title

Culture for Kids- Beyond the Textbook

Project Key Action

This project related with these key action: Cooperation for innovation and the exchange of good practices

Project Action Type

This project related with this action type : School Exchange Partnerships

Project Call Year

This project’s Call Year is 2018

Project Topics

This project is related with these Project Topics: Cultural heritage/European Year of Cultural Heritage; Intercultural/intergenerational education and (lifelong)learning; Creativity and culture

Project Summary

The importance of cultural heritage is not the cultural manifestation itself but rather the wealth of knowledge and skills that is transmitted through it from one generation to the next.Our project was undertaken by 6 partner countries from different parts of Europe-Ireland, Bulgaria, France, Portugal, Cyprus and Italy.
The working language of the project was English with opportunities for countries of course to explore the topic of Cultural Heritage within their native tongue also.This further strengthened the idea of Cultural Heritage that was encompassed within our project.
The еТwinning platform will be the basic tool for communication,collaboration and active involvement of all partners and all participant members.
The objectives of our project “Culture for Kids Beyond the Textbook” were:
1.To provoke desire and interest to learn and preserve the cultural heritage of national communities and those of the partner countries also.To promote a sense of belonging to the European multicultural community in which citizens share common and specific values.
2.To enhance the quality of education in the early childhood by exploring culture ‘Beyond the textbook.
3.To increase the motivation of children to learn and provide opportunities for them to collaborate and communicate using technology.
4.To provoke desire and interest to non-formal and informal activities that promote the acquisition of knowledge and skills in areas of Culture Heritage.
5.To increase self-esteem of children and improve their desire to ‘learn by doing’ and engage in guided discovery of their own culture and history and that of others by bringing it to life.
The planned activities were based on three guidelines that supported and consolidated the Culture4Kids project:
-Ongoing interaction and collaboration between teachers,parents,local artists,museum and library employees-it gave children an opportunity to explore cultural heritage through a variety of means.Whether it is for a specific assignment or topic or any other learning need, the library and the museum has a variety of resources and opportunities for you to learn.When the parents are engaged and involved, everyone benefits, and our schools will become increasingly rich and positive places to teach,learn and grow.
-Child-led initiatives, non-formal activities in formal education-in contrast to structured learning activities at school,our children had opportunities themselves to take up the leadership of child-led initiatives, through support from an adult adviser.By the non-formal educational activities we gave creativity to our children’s structured learning, reinforced their self-esteem and helped them find ways to contribute to their communities.We used the non-formal education activities also to provide additional support to children who are in school.
-The use of ICT and Project Based Learning in teaching young learners-many of the activities required the use of ICT and this helped achieve our objective of motivating our young learners to be active within the topic of Cultural Heritage.It also helped to reinvigorate the teacher’s learning and teaching in this area.The results from our activities gave the rest of our colleagues concrete ideas and a bank of resources that can in future be implemented easily within a classroom scenario and these were disseminated to school staff during the project and also can be afterwards.The teachers, involved in our project,felt confident afterwards in engaging in workshops for other schools with relation to the teaching and learning of cultural heritage within a European and National context.
The active involvement of all school communities promoted effective implementation of the project.This will of course benefit long term not only direct participants,but schools as a whole.Made in both English and mother tongue project’s results and common products will be available through its link in the eTwinning platform and the project website.Any interested persons that wish to discuss our methodologies will be afforded our results after the project conclusion and support will be given by the coordinators where appropriate.
Through the project “Culture for Kids Beyond the Textbook” our children became familiar with the cultural heritage of national communities and those of the partner countries also.They found,presented and visited various places of their country which are protected by UNESCO and are considered as World Heritage.They examined,played,learned and developed their own basic, language, literacy and digital skills.

Project Website

https://culture4kids857775427.wordpress.com/

EU Grant (Eur)

Funding of the project from EU: 93621,38 Eur

Project Coordinator

St Brigid’s Primary School & Country: IE

Project Partners

• Vasil Levski Comprehensive School
• Agrupamento de Escolas Penafiel Sudeste
• Istituto Comprensivo 3 “Don Peppe Diana”
• Dimotiko sxoleio Kokkinotrimithias A
• Ecole Elémentaire Jean Charcot