Let me Bloom Let me Shine Erasmus Project

Project Title

Let me Bloom Let me Shine

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: Natural sciences; Inclusion – equity; Disabilities – special needs

Project Summary

Within our project we kept in mind the words of Native American Saying „Tell me and I will forget. Show me and I may not remember. Involve me and I will understand.”
As trends in teaching lean towards inclusion of students with disabilities in general education and almost every classroom includes a number of students who are dealing with a disability — either physical, educational, emotional, we took this into consideration while conducting our project. It turned out to be a golden mean and enabled us to engage the students in need in its activities as it is impossible to refrain an autistic child , with Asperger’s syndrome, behaviour and ADHD disorder , mentally impaired to the regular classroom environment even having support of modern multimedia. As teachers, we constantly look for resources that will help us effectively teach.
The project ‘Let me Bloom Let me Shine’ based on concrete gardening activities with a view to improving teaching skills and methods of work with SEN students and promoting good practices with respect for the environment.
Our main goal was to provide a welcoming educational space to explore garden through hands-on learning and experimentation, to link the project activities across curriculum , improve nutrition, teach environmental education and foster relationships with peers, family and community.
As we assumed gardening was undoubtedly an engaging activity for all our students since it provided “real world” and made learning more meaningful. SEN and non SEN children enjoyed working together in schools’ gardens and were proud of themselves and the results.
We created and maintained flower gardens, greenhouses, vegetable gardens accordingly to the change of the seasons, run the ecological activities: Earth Day, Planting, Picnic, Harvest and Vegetable Day, Baked Potato Feast, Ecological Gaming Competitions, organized workshops for teachers to learn and exchange the methods and approaches regarded SEN students education, had trips and excursions with our students to the places relevant to the topic of the project.
The project addressed 50 teachers working with SEN children, 50 SEN students and 125 NON SEN children together with their parents. Yet by its nature it involved our schools’ whole communities.
The coordinator was the school from Poland. Among the partners were schools with greater experience of work with SEN students like Poland and Turkey, and less experienced like Italy and Spain. Within this project we prepared international programme of implementation of the gardening activities into education of students with Autism and ADHD, we have the gardens, inspect boxes, green areas and greenhouses established, the photos, video clips of gardening actions taken, Power Point presentations referring to the project activities, presenting our schools and towns done. Our students made posters, booklets of plants and vegetation of each country. We have lesson plans, worksheets, including teaching through the use of the gardening practises and the dictionary of phrases related to the project
The schools’ walls are decorated with project murals. We have project’s logo, the project’s website, the padlet and project’s facebook group.
There were three LTTs organised on location (Poland – February 2019, Italy – May 2019, Spain – February 2020, and last virtual one to Turkey – June 2021 due to covid-19 pandemics) where participating SEN and non SEN children had trainings on gardening activities, nutrition and eating habits improvement and accompanying teachers participated in workshops on dealing with autistic students and adhd behaviour.
We used schools’ and project’s websites, facebook page, youtube. We have leaflets,and posters made. We organized Erasmus+ Days and promoted our activities to the schools’ and local communities, the local media, the local schools, educational boards, insitutions and authorities of our towns.
Having worked together for three years we have better qualified teachers working with Special Need Students. We all tend the established gardens around our schools. We use the international programme of implementing gardening activities to teaching different subjects like Science, Maths, Technology, Art, Literature, Social science into individual educational and therapeutic plans of special need students who are educated in our schools. And last but not least we keep in mind that it is the school setting where each student can safely acquire and practice skills necessary to participate in the adult world and should have the opportunity to bloom. Our gardens are one of them. As a partner team we had to overcome financial, organisational, health difficulties, experienced new situation which undoubtedly remote teaching and pandemics was, yet in a group of cooperating and supportive people we found solutions alltogether based on respect, trust and understanding which eventually made us stronger and better equipped for what the future holds.

Project Website

http://letmebloom.eu

EU Grant (Eur)

Funding of the project from EU: 92937,2 Eur

Project Coordinator

SZKOLA PODSTAWOWA NR 10 Z ODDZIALAMI INTEGRACYJNYMI IM. TADEUSZA KOSCIUSZKI W GORZOWIE WLKP. & Country: PL

Project Partners

• E.B.Atatürk Ortaokulu
• CEIP BLAS INFANTE
• Izmir Gaziemir Sabiha Gokcen Ilkokulu
• Istituto Comprensivo “Egnazio Danti”