In the past children used to spend all days outside playing various sports. Nowadays, they spend most of their time in front of TVs or computers eating junk food and limiting challenges to their creativity, as well as limiting necessary challenges to their bodies to achieve optimal, sensory and motor development. Such habits have an extremely negative impact on the developing child and lead to an increase of physical, psychological and behaviour disorders. Child obesity is now a recognised problem in Europe. When we look at our students we can easily notice that in each year there are at least a few pupils facing this problem. In most cases the reasons of this situation seem to be the popular eating habits where students fill themselves with unhealthy, low in vitamins and nutrients food full of sugar and additives. What makes it worse is the fact that parents do almost nothing to change it. The purpose of the project is to involve the whole school community and the wider community in looking more closely at how we stay healthy. We aim to raise our pupils', parents' and communities' awareness of the influence of healthy lifestyle on children's development and on our life. In order to achieve this, different tasks and activities will be carried out to find out about healthy lifestyle in the present and past and then share and compare results to those of the partner schools. In particular, by looking at how human needs are interrelated through interviews about healthy lifestyle, posters promoting healthy food, healthy salad and snack recipes and healthy lifestyle leaflets we believe that our pupils will begin to make the right choices for their health. During the project activities the students will learn about the dangers of stressfull life and they will be trained in relaxation techniques, they will research morning exercise and energising activities, they will find out new information about herbal tea and the power of water, they will learn about Mediteranean Diet and the importance of breakfast, they will learn about the negative effects of eating sugar, they will take part in healthy cooking lessons, they will learn dances and games from each country and they will try out new sports. In general, the pupils will learn about healthy eating and physical activity to build healthy habits for a lifetime.Permeating all these activities will be the use of IT tools as we aim to integrate technology in the project and use it as a tool to promote and extend students' learning on a daily basis. Combining technology with healthy lifestyle topics should be interesting to the students. Presenting their schools, countries, healthy lifestyle topics and sport to cross-border friends will be an effective way to encourage students to take part in the project and develop their key competences.We expect that the project and participating in the planned activities in a direct or indirect way is going to have many positive effects on all the participants. Healthy lifestyle is going to be the main focus of the project but since a wide range of ICT tools will be employed by doing all the planned tasks and activities the participants will develop the key competences of the 21st century such as innovation, creativity, problem solving, entrepreneurship, teamwork, litaracy, language skills and digital competences. Many curriculum areas will be covered while increasing personal, social skills and citizenship. The practical activities should provide exciting, motivating and purposeful learning experiences for all pupils no matter their ability. All the project activities will have a European dimension and all the results and findings will be exchanged and compared between all partner schools. Sharing our project activities, materials and results with others should lead to a greater awareness of a healthy lifestyle and understanding how we all need to stay healthy and that it is our responsibility to ensure we lead and encourage others to lead healthy lives. In terms of longer term benefits we hope that our project will result in healthier generations in the future.
Our observations and interviews with parents and students led to a conclusion that children's lifestyle is very unhealthy. All partner schools had seen that we have the same problem with our students. That is why we came together for this project. Childhood is an exciting time, as children begin to learn about themselves and the world around them. It is a time when they begin to develop habits that can affect them throughout their lives, especially when it comes to eating habits, doing sports, dealing with stress, etc. We aimed to get our students to incorporate healthy physical activity and healthy nutrition habits into everyday life and in this way their awareness of the importance of health and quality of life had been increased. This has involved making lifelong international links. We wanted to make the children more informed about the basic principles of a healthy life which has shown students how healthy choices can help them do their best at their school life and in their international future. The main idea of the project has been to increase students' awareness of a healthy lifestyle by means of innovative and creative ICT tools. The project focused on health and various aspects of a healthy lifestyle and since a wide range of ICT tools had been employed while doing all the planned tasks and activities, the participants had also developed the key competences of the 21st century such as innovation, creativity, problem solving, entrepreneurship, teamwork, litaracy, language skills, digital skills. Furthermore, this cross-border cooperation enabled us to compare our teaching methods and assess their results. Good examples of teaching methods had been exchanged among partners. Students and teachers from five primary schools from Poland, Greece, Italy, Portugal and Lithuania took part in the project. Cross-border cooperation raised the participants' motivation on using technology and foreign languages effectively. Cooperating with cross-border friends improved the students' communication skills and increased their confidence. The project aimed to raise our pupils' awareness of how to make healthy choices through food and sport activity in their local context as well as an international European context. In order to achieve this, different tasks and activities were carried out to find out about healthy lifestyle. In particular, the students learnt about the dangers of stressful life and they were trained in relaxing techniques, they researched and learnt morning exercise and energising activities, they found out new information about herbal tea and the power of water, they learnt about Mediteranean Diet and the importance of breakfast, they learnt about the negative effects of eating sugar, they prepared healthy recipes and they took part in healthy cooking lessons, they learnt dances and games from each country, they tried out new sports and at the end of the project the students prepared leaflets on healthy lifestyle that they shared with local communities. While fulfilling some of the project tasks the students learnt many things about other nations' culture, history and lifestyle. As in the process the students had been active and the teachers acted as tutors and facilitators, it was an important experience in a lifelong learning perspective as the students have started the process of becoming responsible for their own learning process. While trying to cook new dishes or learn a new game, students gained many skills both physically and psychologically. The students enriched their knowledge and shared it with friends when they were back to their schools. Being a member in a team reinforced their communication skills and motivation to learn a foreign language. Some competitions were organised which arose the children's curiosity and motivation to take part in the project. Each school has also organised competitions and events for their local schools in order to promote healthy lifestyle and disseminate project results. The above mentioned project activities resulted in children being more active and being more aware of the importance of a healthy lifestyle. The work of collaboration and exchange of ideas, good practices and experiences brought benefits not only for teachers and students but also parents of participant schools. The project has also supplied information and ideas to everyone who worked within the educational branch, where EU politics aim to encourage young people from the EU countries to develop their educational level. The project supported this kind of politics because the partnership between these schools helped to collect the information and knowledge about educational differences, cultural differences and different school systems in Europe. Every partner has good practices, experiences and traditions and shared them with other partners. Gaining new experience through the collaboration with other schools brought more benefits than only a local or a national project.