The Old Tortoise’s Treasure Tales Erasmus Project

Project Title

The Old Tortoise’s Treasure Tales

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 school education

Project Call Year

This project’s Call Year is 2018

Project Topics

This project is related with these Project Topics: Pedagogy and didactics; Economic and financial affairs (incl. funding issues); Teaching and learning of foreign languages

Project Summary

The project was planned and approved for 30 months, but our pandemic situation necessitated its extension and so it became 34 months with an additional agreement signed by the Bulgarian National Agency – Center for Human Resources Development and the Private Kindergarten “Leonardo da Vinci”.
OTTT focused on children aged 3 to 10 from seven European countries (Bulgaria – Coordinator, Romania, Greece, Croatia, Lithuania, Portugal and Italy). The project’s target groups included both sides of the educational process – teachers and children.
The project provided teachers with digital training and exchange of good practices, methodologies and approaches on the topic of budgeting, finance and basic economics for children, numerical competencies and the ability of children to operate with numbers and money. This was extremely useful, as the topic of budget and elementary economics is not currently taught as part of the curricula of kindergarten and primary school.
Although teachers are aware of digital resources, with the project we have offered teacher training so that they can create their own digital pedagogical resources to use later in other subjects and when necessary in their further pedagogical practice.
The other target group – the children aged 3 to 10, on whom this educational practice was directed, were the main users of the products developed by the teachers.
The leading idea of the project was to give them the basic commercial and financial knowledge in the closest possible way for the children – through TALES about the money told by The Old Turtle.
Thus, the children learned basic terms in English, as the topics were introduced in English classes in kindergarten and primary school (grades 1-2). Through the implementation of the project work the young students developed the following skills and competencies:
– Learning English as a foreign language;
– Cultural and historical knowledge about the development of Europe;
– Вasic economic skills, suitable for young children and adapted to the specifics of their age;
– Work with numbers and recognize currency value and signs.
– Awareness of concepts such as multiculturalism and tolerance;
– Digital skills.
The teachers created three main products and manuals, and the general motto of the developments was “How to create, design and implement the project’s products”. These products are: an e-flash book, an interactive soft game book and a set of zoom games.
An electronic flash book is a collection of lessons and materials for lessons, tales in English to be used and taught in kindergarten and primary school, on the current topic of the project for the financial development of trade and the invention of money. The tutorials are developed on PowerPoint, which offers animation options, flash effects and other interactive tools suitable for applying this level. Kindergarten or primary school teachers have been trained to work with this application software so that they can use their knowledge and digital skills in their teaching practice to make their lessons more interesting and also to engage the children’s attention. Each country decided whether to translate the manual into their native language, as it is intended for teachers and more and more of them already speak English fluently.
The interactive game book is made of textiles and other soft materials suitable for use in kindergarten. Each page is shaped differently, with pockets, strings, “buttons” and additional materials that children can easily touch and explore. This product proved to be more than successful because at this age children have stronger visual thinking and a chance to develop dactyl skills. The main purpose of the Paperback is to be used as a methodological tool for learning a foreign language with elements of CLIL in finance. Using it, teachers will learn about new approaches in creating self-made teaching materials and applying them to the project’s topic.
Zoom games are digital games that can be projected on the floor or walls and children can play using the designed area as a playground. This type of games develops children’s kinesthetic and spatial thinking and physical skills, applying the method of learning by doing and touching. These games are not competitive, as our main goal is to include all children in the groups, regardless of their physical or mental strength. In the process of learning to create games, Italian trainers suggested a new direction for using games. A certain element of a banknote or coin, or a financial resource is shown enlarged or reduced, and so by scaling the children gradually recognize the whole picture. During the piloting part, when the products were tested with students, the result was a great interest on behalf of the children, both in the lessons and in the zoom games, which provoked thinking, fantasy and dynamics, and especially in the “Soft Book”, which all enthusiasts wanted to touch and work with.

Project Website

http://otttproject.wixsite.com/weshare

EU Grant (Eur)

Funding of the project from EU: 99415,9 Eur

Project Coordinator

Private kindergarten Leonardo da Vinci Ltd & Country: BG

Project Partners

• Knjiznica i citaonica Grada Preloga
• Agrupamento de Escolas de Silves
• GRADINITA CU PROGRAM PRELUNGIT PERLUTELE MARII
• DIADRASTIKO EUROPAIKO SXOLEIO
• IL GIROTONDO coop sociale srl
• Kelmes lopselis-darzelis “Azuoliukas”