,As a result of economic migrations the sociocultural diversity of the population has increased substantially and a higher proportion of immigrant children are included in the preschool and school systems. It has been observed that these children have more difficulties following the lessons in the school or kindergarten and are less successfully integrated into the wider social environment. The reasons can be found in their inability to fluently speak the predominant language (their second language), in undeveloped strategies and instruments for the inclusion of immigrants into the education system, and in insufficient participation of these children and their parents in the school - wider social environment. This project is done among Croatia, Slovenia, Greece, Italy, Iceland, Sweden and Belgium. Through this project digital platforms will be used to create records of process but also to enable measuring the impact since the nature of the project lies in continuous direct work with children. The objectives that by themselves present the final goals have been categorized on to:1) teaching staff- establishing attitudes of the professional staff in all the partner countries towards immigrant children and their parents as positive and enriching for their working environment and teaching skills. - resolving obstacles the professional staff stated in our initial research and have later come across when dealing with the inclusion of immigrant children into kindergartens and schools - knowledge on how to introduce the national language of the county as a second language to immigrant children- knowledge on how to adapt standard lesson plans into multilevel structures that will enable children to approach the subject from different angles and various stages of difficulty- knowledge on how to adapt standard lesson plans into an integrated whole that approaches each child as whole encouraging its overall development- creative thinking processes as an ability to think of different new approaches and methods to learn or an ability to find a source of ideas and incorporating them in their teaching- flexibility and open-minded attitude towards new cultures in their classrooms without any prejudice- confidence in their abilities and high level competences- innovativeness and will to work in classrooms with diverse situation- exchange of experience and direct contact with professionals in the field they only cooperated till then using on-line means2) children- open-minded attitude of native and immigrant children for changes and creativity in their immediate surrounding- understanding and respecting multicultural diversities- chance to meet and interact with more cultures, discover and hear more languages- reducing the decrease in motivation among children- a sense of educational processes as a lifelong learning process through generational overview 3) parents - forming a safe, welcoming and encouraging preschool and school community in which each participant is respected and which functions as a basis for high quality education and lifelong learning- inclusive values among the preschool and school staff, children, leadership and parents- inclusive practice inside and outside the playroom and classroom- higher lever of participation of kindergarten and school staff, parents and wider local community- higher level of participation from immigrant parents and better cooperation with themThey will also, indirectly, benefit other educational institution and schools from all partner countries; other communities that might encounter similar difficulties and other educational institutions including the educational system as such. Teachers are asking how best to meet the needs of these children. What can we do in our classroom to create an environment in which children of varied cultures and languages thrive and grow? How can we increase our own knowledge, awareness and teaching practice to appropriately support the children's ongoing learning needs? What kind of strategies we can apply to involve parents and the community in children's everyday education?The project's aim is to find the best and the most effective ways and innovative approaches to integrate children who join our educational system and our school from different countries and cultures
,As a result of economic migrations the sociocultural diversity of the population has increased substantially and a higher proportion of immigrant children are included in the preschool and school systems. It has been observed that these children have more difficulties following the lessons in the school or kindergarten and are less successfully integrated into the wider social environment. The reasons can be found in their inability to fluently speak the predominant language (their second language), in undeveloped strategies and instruments for the inclusion of immigrants into the education system, and in insufficient participation of these children and their parents in the school - wider social environment. Teachers are asking how best to meet the needs of these children. What can we do in our classroom to create an environment in which children of varied cultures and languages thrive and grow? How can we increase our own knowledge, awareness and teaching practice to appropriately support the children's ongoing learning needs? What kind of strategies we can apply to involve parents and the community in children's everyday education? This project was about bridging the multicultural diversities in education. The project's aim was to find the best and the most effective ways, and innovative approaches, to integrate children who join from different countries and cultures with the process of inclusion as an opposed to integration as the principle idea. Objectives pursued in this project: -enabling inclusive processes for children and parents that would make their day-to-day lives easier, -creating and environment in material, informal, social and emotional levels as a way of helping adapting to new social and cultural surrounding, -creating a reference/idea book on how to work with immigrant children which will offer assistance to the current curricula, -including the intercultural education into preschool and school curriculum, -creating physical environment (playrooms, classrooms) that will present and support diversity but also enable individualized learning process, -integrating intercultural content in the curriculum, -helping immigrant children start kindergarten and school, -building and expanding teaching competence of the staff, -creating examples of didactic materials as well as ideas for working and teaching guides in multicultural classrooms. This project was done among 5 educational institutions. 3 early childhood and preschool institutions: Djecji Vrtic Obzori from Croatia, Stormhattens Förskola from Sweden and Vrtec Pedenjped from Slovenia; and 2 primary school educations: Landakotsskóli from Iceland and 1st Primary School of the Port of Hersonisos from Greece. This project undertook one transnational project meeting that took place at the beginning of the project with Croatia and Slovenia being the host and 4 short-term joint staff training events that took place through out the two years of the project. The first training event took place on-line and was prepared by Slovenia and Croatia, while the other three were mobilities where Iceland, Sweden and Crete were the hosts. Each training event covered different topics form the three main areas: -Inclusion of multiculturalism in educational practice, -teacher competences, and -cooperation with parents. Through this project digital platforms were be used to create records of process but also to make the educational materials available: https://ebtmdie.wixsite.com/education-innovation/online-educations Results for this project were expected and reached within three main spheres: -environment (changes in both physical and psychological aspects), -children (changes in mental perception and basic skills acquisition), and -teacher competences (changes in mental perception and both formal and applied competences when dealing with basic skills acquisition with second language learners). Impact was attained through following target groups: -pedagogical and teaching staff, -children, and -parents.