A main priority of the project “Small explorers in a magic world of the European folk culture” is to form, among the project participants, a feeling of affiliation to the local circle, region, country, cultural awareness in the European society and developing intellectual co-operation in integrated Europe. It is also important to show multiethnic and multicultural proceedings including integration processes. The project “Small explorers in a magic world of the European folk culture” was written for pupils at the age 9 – 13. The partnership co-operation in project realisation contains schools from Italy, Turkey, Portugal, Croatia, Lithuania, France and project co-ordinator polish school. The main activities are connected with learning by building up English language, using modern ICT, making European education stronger, having elementary life competence and initiating students in cultural spending their free time without any violence. All these improve education quality. This project prepares its participants for learning through the whole life, transforming information and being critical receivers. It forms auto-presentation and co-operation ability and respect different cultures. This project promotes European folk culture, social cohesion which give civil activity in future. The wide context of our project contains a promotion of European nationality control due to studying the common values among every citizen in Europe. We want to take care of developing cognitive inquires, forming proper social attitudes and showing frankness as well as tolerant attitudes. The main project purpose is to sensitize its participants to cultural heritage in the united Europe. We are going to realise our purposes by studying folk culture subject like: folk music (dance, song, folk traditions, customs, local languages – dialects, food, forgotten jobs), national costumes and material culture (tools, development, national costumes, handicraft), or folk theme in art and culture (legends, fairy-tales, stories, poetry, literature, painting, sculpture). The very important aspect of our partnership is active participation of all school societies in project realisation (students, parents and teachers). The final product of our co-operation is to create bilingual (English and native languages) web-site with suitable educational qualities in the project subject, showing each school achievements and being the main project resource. The project “Small explorers in a magic world of the European folk culture” allows us to integrate with European Union citizens with different culture traditions. The participation in this project gives us a chance of understanding the need for cultivation of tradition and cultural heritage of the United Europe. It also gives an opportunity for leaving cultural outlines which are created due to isolation and prejudice resulting in the lack of active relationship among the united European countries. We think that, the common creative work without any cultural, religions, economical, historical and social differences is the best way of fighting with racism, xenophobia, lack of tolerance, violence or any other kind of social marginal activity. The most important priority areas of this project are: - A promotion of knowledge valuation in general, - A promotion of social integration and young people welfare. The most important project subjects are: - Intercultural and intergeneration education and learning through the whole life, - UE nationality, European awareness and democracy. Considering a proper project realisation we ensure regular and efficient co-operation or communication between partners. Therefore all institutions will be working according to settled activities schedule, time limits and allocated duties. The regular working project meetings among school co-ordinators, teachers or school headmasters will be organised – three meetings in the first year of project realisation and three meetings in the second year, which allow information exchange and sharing of experiences or good practices within the whole group. During the project realisation we use diagnosis, monitoring and evaluation using such instruments like: pupil’s work and working plan analysis, questionnaire, observations and conversations.
The main priority of the project “Small explorers in a magic world of the European folk culture” was to form, among the project participants, a feeling of affiliation to the local community, region or country and cultural awareness in the European society as well as to develop intellectual cooperation in integrated Europe. It was also important to show multiethnic and multicultural diversity including integration processes. The project prepared its participants to learning through the whole life, acquiring and processing information and being critical and creative recipients. The project “Small explorers in a magic world of the European folk culture” was written for pupils from primary schools. The partnership cooperation in the project implementation involved schools from Italy- Istituto Comprensivo L. Bassi- S. Catalano, Turkey - 50.YIL GENERAL REFET BELE ORTAOKULU, Portugal - Agrupamento de Escolas Irmãos Passos , Croatia - Osnovna skola Donji Kraljevec, Lithuania - Vilniaus r. Rakoniu pagrindine mokykla, Spain - ES LICINIO DE LA FUENTE and the project coordinator – a Polish Primary School number 110 in Łódź. During the project implementation regular working project meetings were organised (with both children and teachers participating) dealing with teaching, learning, and coaching - three meetings in the first year of the project and three in the second year. It allowed us to exchange information and share experiences and good practices within the whole group. All the project partners met at a working meeting of the school coordinators, English teachers and school principals during which establishing of effective international cooperation between the entire group of partner schools, distributing tasks, working out common evaluation methods, planning events and designing a website took place. The main goal of the project was to raise among its participants the awareness of cultural heritage in the united Europe. We achieved our purpose by studying folk culture subjects like: folk music (dance, song, folk bands, musical instruments), folk traditions, and customs (folk holidays, artists, local languages – dialects, food, forgotten occupations), national costumes and material culture (tools, development, national dress, handicraft) or folk themes in art and culture (legends, fairy-tales, stories, poetry, literature, painting, sculpture). The students participating in the project wrote and exchanged traditional paper letters but they also used the Internet to send emails. This allowed them to form long-lasting international friendships. They also created a folder, which presented interesting places connected with folk culture of each partner country and recorded a CD with folk songs in a professional recording studio. During the project implementation the students edited and published a school magazine (“Folklore Magazine”) presenting their tasks. They also created and published a calendar (for the year 2017) with some information about folk holidays and prepared a cookery book with recipes of regional cuisine. Apart from that, the students also created numerous multimedia presentations about folk bands, instruments and national dress. What is more, they took part in international competitions connected with the project logo, a plush toy or a cover of the CD with folk songs. They participated in dance and craft workshops, meetings with folk artists and trips to ethnographic and open-air museums. The teachers, who supported the students in all the above mentioned activities, created and published a set of interesting lesson plans dealing with and promoting folk culture. One of the crucial aspects of our partnership was active participation of all the school members in the project implementation (students, parents and teachers) as well as various educational institutions. One of the final products of our co-operation was an English language website (http://www.eurofolklore-erasmusplus.eu/index.html) with suitable educational qualities in the project subject, showing the achievements of each school and being the main project resource. The main activities of the project were aimed at developing school curriculum and learning by building up language competence (particularly English). This goal was achieved by writing and exchanging letters among the project participants, learning new vocabulary connected with folk culture, editing and publishing a quarterly “Folklore Magazine”, using modern ICT to prepare multimedia presentations about folk groups and instruments, preparing a cookery book with regional cuisine, and using a video camera to record and share films from the meetings with folk artists and the trips to various museums. All these activities greatly contributed to making European education stronger, acquiring elementary life skills and initiating students into cultural forms of spending their free time without any violence.