1,2,3 PLAY MATH WITH ME Erasmus Project

Project Title

1,2,3 PLAY MATH WITH ME

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: Key Competences (incl. mathematics and literacy) – basic skills; Early School Leaving / combating failure in education; Inclusion – equity

Project Summary

Our partnership has consisted of 6 pre-schools and primary schools from 5 countries: Poland (2), Romania, Slovenia, Spain and Turkey.
The theme we have been working on during these three years has been the learning of mathematics in the early stages of education systems because of its great impact on children’s mental development and logical processes.
“There is no difficult mathematics but good and bad teaching methods and good and bad teachers”.
We all know how difficult it is for a large number of pupils to learn and internalise mathematics throughout their school years. This project has aimed to transform a bad attitude towards mathematical knowledge and learning processes linked to logical thinking that start already in the early stages of education into positive attitudes of acquisition and learning.
Children use early mathematical skills in their daily routines and activities, and we understand that mathematical thinking is part of holistic development along with autonomy and motor skills and all of them as part of a communicative, social and symbolic game.
To help in this complex process of mathematical thinking and to manage the knowledge skills and emotions that arise in their daily lives we have used “Willy’s World of Numbers”, an active method that has allowed us to practice memory, perceptiveness, attention span and to develop logical thinking, motor skills, a sense of rhythm, musicality and imagination, always through playful activities that attract the interest and enthusiasm of our students while supporting their language skills and social competence.
This project has been used with all our pupils between the ages of 2 and 6 years old, adapting the materials and techniques to their abilities at all times.
A remarkable aspect that has made this project on mathematics in practice even more interesting is the cooperation between teachers and parents, what is called “mathematical literacy”, so that its development and stability is extended over time; for the OECD this is the ability of the individual to identify and understand the role of mathematics in the world in order to meet the needs of the child’s current and future life as a citizen in continuous personal growth: skills and potential.
Developing our work with a small range of pupils (from 2 to 6 years old) has meant that the materials developed and the activities carried out in each of the centres are easily adaptable to the other schools with very slight modifications, which has resulted in a wide range of educational proposals developed and valid for all. The fact that we have a large number of activities that we can use will allow us to extend this work beyond the limits of the project itself and to introduce it as a stable methodological proposal in our educational projects and classroom programmes.
The difficulties of confinement in carrying out activities with our pupils have been compensated by the extension of the project for another year. However, due to travel limitations and the COVID-19 protocols of the schools, some modifications had to be made. All the “teacher interchanges” have been carried out except one, and some of them have modified the itinerary of the visit. All of them, despite the social distancing that the COVID protocols obliged us to do, have been very productive, as we have been able to see in the classrooms the work that has been done in each of the schools with the pupils involved.
The transnational training activities have been very productive because they have allowed us to see new educational proposals, activities, etc. in situ, enriching the experience of all the participating teachers, who were then responsible for transmitting them to their respective educational teams. These were joined by new telematic meetings to deal with different organisational issues and the distribution of tasks of each of the participating partners.
We have made a great effort to involve our families (they have created materials for use in the classroom based on small slogans) and other schools in the area surrounding our schools, for which we created a website that was widely disseminated through social networks, making its link visible from the websites of the schools themselves, making calendars, leaflets, T-shirts, etc., bringing our project closer to the environment. The project we were carrying out was mentioned in the media; the project and several of the materials used were publicised at meetings of area directors so that they could offer it in their centres, and a workshop on initiation to mathematical logic based on the methodology of our project is planned for the Colmenar Viejo area.
The result is a project that has led us to develop a working methodology that is very attractive and motivating for our students, that motivates, that helps them in their individual and globalised learning, that is tangible and easily observable and all of this while they feel that they are playing.

Project Website

http://erasmus123playwithme.com

EU Grant (Eur)

Funding of the project from EU: 82905 Eur

Project Coordinator

Enseñando a Aprender S.L. – EEI Los Puertos & Country: ES

Project Partners

• OSNOVNA SOLA KAMNICA
• ILIMTEPE ILKOKULU
• Przedszkole Nr 128
• Liceul Tehnologic “Nicolae Teclu” Copsa Mica
• Przedszkole nr 106