Creating, experimenting and cooperating – improving practices in Early Childhood Education Erasmus Project

Project Title

Creating, experimenting and cooperating – improving practices in Early Childhood Education

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 : Strategic Partnerships for Schools Only

Project Call Year

This project’s Call Year is 2017

Project Topics

This project is related with these Project Topics: Creativity and culture; Quality Improvement Institutions and/or methods (incl. school development); Pedagogy and didactics

Project Summary

Context/background of project:
We started our project from a challenge set by some of the partners through email and eTwinning platform. We are all experienced and committed preschool teachers. We developed many contacts and held several discussions via email and via Skype to share ideas and make commitments.
The initial idea was to promote the improvement of educational practices in preschool education using creative approaches and activities related to nature. These were the three vectors that continue to be present in the final design of the project.
We have 7 partners from 6 countries, Portugal (two schools), Lithuania, Bulgaria, Croatia, Poland and Greece.

Goals of the project:
– To promote collaboration between teachers and children in Europe
– To learn new tools and develop new skills in order to improve communication
– To promote structured inter-regional and cross-border cooperation
– To enhance the quality of preschool education in partner institutions,
– To provide better opportunities for children to learn through a creative, holistic and inclusive approach
– To provide better opportunities for children to develop new skills such as creativity, curiosity, self-regulation, self-consciousness and interpersonal social skills
– To provide better opportunities for teachers and children to develop language and ICT skills.
– To provide better opportunities for teachers to share their knowledge, compare their educational approaches, construct new teaching materials, sharing examples of good practice in early childhood education.

Number and profile of participants:
– Coordinating teachers ( 7 experienced teachers who will be responsible for guiding the process of working with colleagues at a national level and monitoring and evaluating the various tasks foreseen in the plan).
– Participating preschool teachers (working directly with children) – aprox. 60.
– Parents and families
In each country, in addition to the coordinator, there will be at least 4 preschool teachers involved, whom will directly participate in the implementation of the project with the children and will contribute to the identification of topics to be addressed, the improvement of educational practices and their evaluation.

Description of activities:
With the first transnational meeting, an eTwinning project will be organized, and it will be structuring for the development of the whole project.
Between the mobilities, the work will be developed in 24 months, divided in 4 thematic modules– water, air, earth, forest.
TM1 – in Bulgaria – October 2017
LTT – in Portugal (C1)– February 2018
LTT – in Croatia (C4) – June 2018
TM 2 – in Poland– October 2018
LTT – in Greece (C3)– February 2019
LTT – in Lithuania (C5) – Mai 2019
TM3 – in Portugal – July 2019
Methodology to be used in carrying out the project:
During the first international meeting and during all the short-term staff trainings:
– work topics/modules will be planned and discussed;
– approaches and pedagogical models in childhood education will be debated;
– training workshops will be provided for teachers and parents.
– the results of each phase of the project will be presented and evaluated.
During the other two international meetings
– School situations will be analysed ( the project outcomes and the quality of education) with questionnaires for parents, children and teachers and through observation of the context.
– The overall development of the project, the fulfilment of the planned tasks and the future actions will be evaluated.
Between mobilities each country needs to implement the proposed activities and fill the checklist to give feedback on the activitiesto other partners every month
Our results will be:
– Development of teacher’s educational skills
– Improvement of children’s learning and skills
– Innovative and creative educational practices
– Collaborative work between European countries
– Records of the developed experiences (in eBook; web sites; eTwinning platform; …)
Impacts:
– Developing children’s skills and motivation for learning, searching, discovering, acquiring key competences, via creative and socio-constructivist way of education.
– Improving language skills for both teachers and children
– Testing innovative educational methods and approaches.
– Learning more about the central aspects of the early childhood curriculum, methods and practices in the partner countries.
– Knowing and sharing more innovative educational practices
– Developing collaborative work
– Developing digital skills and the use of ICT
– Engaging teachers and children through cooperation between European countries
– Developing active participation of children and parents

EU Grant (Eur)

Funding of the project from EU: 135090 Eur

Project Coordinator

Agrupamento de Escolas de Campo & Country: PT

Project Partners

• “Zname na mira”
• 1st Nipiagogio Rethymnou
• Przedszkole Publiczne w Kraczkowej
• Agrupamento de Escolas de Valadares
• Kelmes “Kulverstuko” lopselis-darzelis
• Djecji vrtic Djecji svijet