The Activities Related To Holocaust/ Lithuania

On the 23rd of September the Commemorative Year celebration events dedicated  to the Lithuanian Jewish genocide victims were held throughout the country.The fourth grade students of our school also remembered the date by visiting the Jewish people‘s massacre place as well as the cemetery . According to the ancient Jewish custom every student brought a small stone to the cemetery  and lit  a candle.

Irada Miltiniene, English Teacher Of Vilkaviskis Primary School/Lithuania

Quiz About Italy in Vilkaviskis Primary School in Lithuania

On the 20th of October a quiz about our country-partner Italy took place in Vilkaviskis primary school in Lithuania. Eighteen students , aged ten-eleven, from different classes, formed six groups and participated in a quiz which consisted of nine tasks and was divided into two parts-Lithuanian and English. First of all, every tea m chose a captain and created a motto. Then they were listening to three different anthems and had to guess which one is Italian. They also had to find a shape of Italy, to colour the Italian flag and fill in the gaps. Later they had to guess the meanings of Italian words, listen to the tape and hear which character is from Italy, do the multiple choice exercise and, finally, solve a crossword. The quiz lasted one hour and all the students were trying to do their best. The fourth team, the members of which studied about Italy much more than the others, became the winners of the international awareness quiz and were awarded on the 27th of October. We are very proud of our smart boys‘team and their captain Zygimantas.

Irada Miltiniene, English Teacher Of Vilkaviskis Primary School/Lithuania

The Unforgetable Moments From a Partnership Meeting in Italy

A new Comenius Project named „Join hands and hug Europe „ started in Vilkaviskis Primary school this September. The partnership consists of six European countries-Croatia(the coordinating country), Italy, Poland, The Czech Republic, Turkey and Lithuania. It‘s the first Comenius Project in our region where not only teachers of a primary education are involved in the mobilities but the students as well. The first meeting was organized on the 26th-30th of September in Vezzano Ligure, Italy. The coordinating teachers, the members of Project teams and school headteachers took part in the meeting. Our school was represented by Irada Miltiniene, our English teacher, our brave and smart fourth year students Miglena Mikuckaite and Juste Bunikyte and me, the headteacher of this primary school.

Italy welcomed us with evegreen cedras, proudly looking palm-trees, ripening bunches of grapes and olives. The Vezzano Primary school is situated in the same way as our own –in several different buildings in different places. We were met with sonorous Italian songs performed by talented Italian students and their Music teachers. The first days of our arrival were dedicated to present our schools and countries, plan the forthcoming activities as well as  enjoy the first achieved results. We also looked around the neighbourhoods and came to know the Italian culture,  traditions and cuisine. We visited the town of Serzana and the famous castle of marquize Malaspina. The first record on the castle dates back to the twelfth century. It was visited by Dante Alighieri, who supposedly envisioned the descending circles of Hell, that inspired the corresponding part of his Divine Comedy. According to the legend, Dante saw the great funnel-shaped cave lying below, surrounded by a series of ledges with the slopes converging to the stream.

 On Thursday we went to the paradise on Earth, the Cinque Terre, which is a rugged portion of coast on the Italian Riviera. Clear as crystal the Ligurian Sea water, pebble beaches and rocky dot landscape, lovely villages left an indelible impression on each of our hearts.

When we came back to Vezzano Ligure, we had the last project meeting, a wonderful dinner together, exchanged our contacts and said goodbye to each other. The next April everybody is coming here, to Lithuania, to the Primary school in Vilkaviskis.

Asta Strazdiene, The Headteacher of Vilkaviskis Primary School/Lithuania

Szkoła Podstawowa nr 47 im. J.K. Branickiego/Poland

Szkoła Podstawowa nr 47 im. J.K. Branickiego, Białystok Poland
Primary school nr 47 in Białystok is situated in North-Eastern Poland. Due to social and economic factors the area is rather poor and threatened by unemployment. The region of Białystok is ethnically diverse – different nationalities such as the Byelorussians, Lithuanians, Ukrainians, Tatars as well as refugees from Chechnya live here contributing also to religious diversity which influences the cultural and social specificity of our school and the area. 
In the school there are children with special educational needs who are integrated into classes with the other children. The teachers try to integrate all children and involve them in all activities and actions. The school is regarded as very friendly to pupils, parents and teachers.

Türkkonut Emel Önal İlköğretim Okulu/Turkiye

Türkkonut  Emel Önal Primary School is in  Ankara , the capital city of Turkey.   It is a new school . It was founded in 2008.  Our  school has  thirty-six classrooms, a gymnasium, two science laboratories, a computer laboratory,  two  kindergarten classrooms. There are also an  art classroom, a theatre  hall ,  a library  and  a canteen.We have  780 students (6-14 years old) and 48 teachers. The School has got computers in every classroom  with smart board tech and projectors. Our students take part in a lot of social and cultural activities.

In our  school , the majority  of the students comes  from low  socio - economic families   and the  cultural  differences  between  families  are  strong. Turkish as  a native language is used as the first language and English is taught as the second language.

Our students  want to improve their English skills. In this  project,  we   wish to  develop the European dimensions in education and improve communication  between our  students  and their European  colleagues  .

Základní škola a Mateřská škola Bělá pod Pradědem,Příspěvková Organizace/Czech Republic

The basic school in Bela pod Pradedem is situated in a poor mountain area with extremely high unemployment rate. Pupils have hardly any opportunities for any afterschool  activities in their small village and for their parents it is difficult to pay afterschool  activities in the city. The only possible opportunities can be provided by our school. We want our students to be more self-confident and we hope that European cooperation will help
us to achieve it. International school partnership can show our students importance of education, team work and studying foreign languages. It could be a great motivation for them as many of local young people will have to work in other EU countries in the future.

Istituzione Scolastica Autonoma n.11 Vezzano Ligure/Italy

The ISA applying to the project is situated in the suburbs of La Spezia in a mountainous area. The residents commute to work,  and therefore school plays an important role as a cultural unifying centre. We  have got 670 pupils and they come also from the surrounding areas and together with the Council we work to integrate migrants and pupils at risk of social exclusion.  There are 5 schools and we've got 3 smart boards, three ICT labs , a canteen in each school and 3 gyms.
It is our belief that the children are growing up in a difficult world where conflict is central to the world media and in which friendship with other nations is often outweighed by negative attitudes to racial and cultural diversity.  We want to offer the children opportunities to work with others in the international communities, not only to increase respect and tolerance but to celebrate our differences through a variety of creative media. It's a valuable experience for our students to be in contact with students from other countries. It's also of outstanding importance the fact that our students can share their feelings and their dreams in English, the language they study at school. This is a highly motivating issue to get our students utterly involved in such an experience. All the pupils ranging  from 3 to 14 years old are involved in the project together with the great majority of teachers. The methodology chosen is prevalently lab based: children play an active role, they work mainly in groups using techniques of cooperative learning.
To sum up our main objective is to  increase awareness of other cultures within the EU through a multimedia and personal approach. This should include geographical, historical and cultural awareness.

Vilkaviškio Pradinė Mokykla/Lithuania

Vilkaviskis Primary school was founded on September 1st, 2009. The school occupies three different buildings in Vilkaviskis town and two in the countryside. It has got about 600 students and 50 teachers. The school priorities are as follows: improvement of the education quality as well as promotion of students’ healthy lifestyle and fostering the ethnic culture. The school vision  is to ensure friendly environment for teaching and learning, to educate independent, responsible, creative and enterprising personalities. Vilkaviskis primary school also strives to provide an opportunity for self-expression and creativity as well as good education and equal rights; it constantly seeks for  innovative methods of training and inspires the culture of honesty, democracy, tolerance and consistency.
 Our students eagerly and actively take part in different projects on the regional level and they can be proud of their high achievements. The school has never participated in any international projects before, and the school community expects that the involvement in such a Partnership will have positive impact on the quality of education and increase the level of international awareness.

The Project Summary

The multilateral learner-centred intercultural project Join Hands and Hug Europe would provide a platform for close cooperation between 6 European primary schools (Croatia,Lithuania, Poland,Chez Republic, Italy,Turkiye) - their pupils, teachers and other education staff in order to improve the school climate and create a safer, more tolerant and inclusive school by reducing violence and bullying and ensuring that every child feels accepted and develops its potential to the full. Teachers, pedagogues, psychologists and social pedagogues would exchange, analyze and compare violence-prevention protocols, procedures and other preventive measures used in the partner schools. Teachers would also exchange their lesson plans, resources, record their lessons and analyze them in order to enhance their pedagogical skills and improve their teaching methods. By its entertaining and interactive tasks the project aims at increasing learner-autonomy, motivation and creativity. Due to the topic of intercultural education the project has a multidisciplinary character involving ICT,native and foreign languages, history, geography, religion, science,art,music and technical education. The project activities would be integrated into the regular curriculum. Pupils of different ages and a large number of teaching staff would actively take part in the project. Their knowledge of other European countries, cultures and languages would be enhanced. Coming from different socio-cultural backgrounds pupils would study various aspects of culture. The project strongly emphasizes the value of cultural and linguistic diversity within Europe. By broadening their horizons and developing their communicative, social and multicultural competences the project would help the pupils become responsible, tolerant and open-minded citizens of multicultural Europe.

A Healthy Child -The Gates to The Future

 From  the 10th to the 14th of October the programme „Health education in the Primary school„ took place. The programme was prepared and coordinated by the deputy teacher Jovita Grakaviniene. During the whole week a teacher-trainee from Joniskis Ilona Gylyte participated in open lessons and related activities.

  The aim of the programme was to improve the teachers‘ competences through providing the students and their parents the knowledge about health, shaping attitudes towards healthy lifestyle and behaviour.  To share the school health experience, present the models of health education as well as with the opportunities of cooperation with the families and society.  

Monday was devoted to the education of physical health.

Knowledge of the world

In the Maths lessons

The topics of healthy eating and provision of the first aid were integrated into different subjects. Later a preventive afternoon

„Let‘s live healthy“took place.

The representative of the Public Health Care in the local municipality.

On Tuesday, during the lessons of the World Knowledge and Moral Education students learned how to control emotions, how to communicate and know themselves, how to think and make decisions. The afternoon „Let‘s live friendly“ taught the children that „live without communication or communicating in a wrong way  is the same as living with closed eyes

Simona Bikaite took part in the event.The senior specialist of the Public Order Department at Police Commissariat in Vilkaviskis region Ruta Kairiene  participated in the event.

 During the Moral Education, Art, Lithuanian lessons on Wednesday the main attention was paid at the education of moral health. The students learned how to tell the truth, they found out about the importance of goodness, the true human beauty and love. In the evening the parents  of the students paid a visit to school.

And we  were looking for the solutions to different communication problems.

On Thursday morning a non-traditional activity about friendship and goodness was performed by the teacher-trainee.

After classes the students, their parents and teachers took part in a contest „The healthiest ones of the healthiest“, reflecting the main principles of the total health.

 A big group of guests arrived to Vilkaviskis Primary school:the representative of Educational Department Ingrida Meseckiene, the head of the Kretinga food Vilma Blazaitiene and a pedagogue of Healthy lifestyle Erika Kuslyte. The students‘ teams showed their skills while performing different tasks, and for every correct answer they got a present-an apple.

On Friday the teacher-trainee was introduced to the famous places of Vilkaviskis region. She also presented her own school. Later the discussion about the training took place.

 We are very glad to have such a number of hardworking and creative pedagogues who worked during that week especially actively-presenting open lessons, preparing the events and the educational corners. They not only worked individually and in teams but also were evaluated and could evaluate themselves.

Irada Miltiniene,English Teacher Of Vilkaviskis Primary School/Lithuania