Developing socio-emotional skills at pre-school age Erasmus Project

Project Title

Developing socio-emotional skills at pre-school age

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: New innovative curricula/educational methods/development of training courses; Inclusion – equity; Pedagogy and didactics

Project Summary

The project responded to common needs identified by partner kindergartens in order to prevent and to combat social exclusion of children who exhibit aggressive behaviors or difficulties in adapting collectively and do not spend a quality time with family and they are deprived of affection. It contributed to the improvment of teachers’ professional skills regarding on emotional development of preschoolers. Our priority has been to ensure a safe and friendly environment for the well-being of our preschoolers.
For 920 preschoolers (3-7 years old) and 115 teachers of 5 kidergartens from Romania, Bulgaria, Latvia and Turkey, during September 2018 – December 2020, the project objectives were:
O1. To improve teachers’ professional skills in socio-emotional development of children, through exchange the good practices in designing and conducting cooperative ludic activities for children;
O2. To form the behavioral emotional management skills of preschoolers involved in 4 thematic projects;
O3. To create in mixed teams of preschoolers – teachers 20 digital stories with therapeutic effect.
The partner teachers implemented and evaluated by a common structure, and using the same tools, 4 thematic projects, adapted to the specific curriculum, aimed at the children’s emotional development through games, stories, dramatizations, drawings: “The enchanting box with emotions”, “Let’s play together!”, ”Wheel of Emotions” and “A story for everyone”.
The thematic projects developed created new educational contexts based on capitalizing on the emotional development strategies of preschoolers.
Children’s parents were also involved in these activities. The onset of each project was preceded by a teacher training activity in which they designed activities, created appropriate tools for evaluation, and maked the SWOT analysis of the previous project to identify improvement solutions. Partners used the eTwinning Platform in order to create and develop the TwinSpace of the project in order to collaborate and disseminate the activities and the results.
There were 4 transnational training activities focused on:
-Project management and socio-emotional skills(Romania- November 2018);
-Socio-emotional skills and games (Latvia-May 2018);
-Emotional skills and stories (Bulgaria – October 2019);
-Emotional and digital skills (Turkey – October 2020).
The results obtained were:
1. – a glossary with 4 projects on emotions with ludic and cooperative activities:”The enchanting box with emotions”, “Let’s play together!”, ”Wheel of Emotions” and “A story for everyone”;
– a common set of tools for assessing children’s socio-emotional skills for each thematic project;
– 4 thematic projects implemented among children and evaluated by the teachers.
2.- better cooperation between teachers, children and parents;
– less conflicting situations and less aggressive behaviors among children in the target group;
– a pro-social behavior of children who are aware of their feelings and transform their own negative emotions into positive ones.
3.- 20 digital stories with therapeutic effect (4 per partner); children who practice their digital skills constructively.
The impact of the project was strong on children who know are able to know and better manage their emotions, transforming negative emotions into positive ones, better integrating into the school environment and society. Teachers have improved their teaching practices on children’s emotional development activities and are able to facilitate more effective communication and interaction between children and children, between adults and children, by eliminating existing emotional differences. At the level of each partner kindergarten, the offer of the extracurricular activities is more diversified, the school-family-community partnership is strengthened, the European dimension of the quality of education offered and also the prestige of the unit is increased.
The participation in this project has contributed to the development of the involved units in the long-term because the partners used the results and they continued to implement some activities following:
-The involved teachers became the resources-persons in their unit and they shared the experience to other colleagues. They all developed some similar projects, capitalised the professional skills and designed resources. Also, they are able to enforce the unit-parents relationship.
– The created products – Glossary of thematic projects about emotions with ludic activities, 20 therapeutic digital stories, portfolios of thematic projects – are used by the other teachers in daily lessons and extracurricular activities.
– The good results of children regarding the socio-emotional skills recommend our unit in the community and increase our kindergarten prestige.

EU Grant (Eur)

Funding of the project from EU: 84064 Eur

Project Coordinator

GRADINITA CU PROGRAM PRELUNGIT NR. 2 & Country: RO

Project Partners

• Przedszkole nr 11
• CDG”Slance”
• Salaspils novada pasvaldibas pirmsskolas izglitibas iestade “Ritenitis”
• Adana Cukurova Yunus Emre Ilkokulu