CASTLES: Culture, Art, Story, Tales, Love and Equality in European Inclusive Schools.

The study of castles is a very popular theme for children of all ages. It stimulates their imagination, carry them to other dream and magical worlds. Through such a popular topic generates a very positive climate that helps and enhances learning and knowledge that is passed to students more easily. Children enjoy being at school and are eager to see what new things will surprise them. Children with learning disabilities feel less stressed and boost their self-esteem while highlighting children's talents. The extensive use of ICT tools also helps all the children including those with learning difficulties. All the students are involved in the project activities and they all enjoy them as well as develop new skills. This was the reason why the four schools, two kindergartens from Italy and Latvia and two primary Schools from Greece and Poland, which were already met in an etwinning project, decided to study almost all subjects , such as history, geography, maths, architecture, urban planning, chemistry, literature, arts, sustainability, social life, places of worship, natural environment protection, tourism development, English, through the study of the castles. As members of the EU, children wanted to experience other countries, their culture and history. They identified similarities as well as differences, respected each other and felt that all have their own value and even though they are different - they are equal at the same time. Nowadays our countries and our schools are living a global crisis affecting the international context and our schools need some investments in education. This project was for equity and quality, giving all children opportunities for a good quality education in European dimension. The schools in partnership were located in regions with monuments enriched of cultural and historical significance, with many legends linked to them and children had to be taught from a very early age at school to take care of the artistic and cultural patrimony, the common patrimony of Europe. The partnership, the exchanging of learning experience about history of European castles, is a contribution to mutual understanding and respect between different peoples and societies. Learning is active, not passive. Learning is doing, making, building, arranging, figuring out, changing…and the project helped students to explore the historic importance and function of castles in time, introduced them to a general history and life in the castles and architectural terms investing all areas of the curriculum; language arts, science, math, social studies, and the arts. This project promoted culture, traditions, history and art of our regions and countries and encouraged young students to gather information from various sources (books, museums, web, film..) and to understand learn to examine a problem from all aspects, which is important for a successful career. A great variety of activities was held in this project: creation of the website, the blog, mascot, logo and anthem competitions, creation of materials such as models of castles, shields, crowns, armor, counts, dresses, dragons, ghosts, games, Erasmus corners, bookmarks, cards, maps, poems, stories, crosswords and lexicons, presentations of castles in our countries, traditional songs, dances, food, festivals, visits to castles and museums, transnational project meetings, on line meetings, creation of a common story, activities on the twinspace of our etwinning project, fancy dress parties, exhibitions, events and other disseminating activities, too. All actors involved developed their confidence in the use of English and new technologies languages using different tools and the blog of project. We created an active methodology involving especially children and students with SEN (special educational needs) and disadvantaged children. Our probate experience in last Comenius projects, in which some of us were partners , demonstrated us that working in European partnership is an unique opportunity for schools for having motivated pupils and teachers and, the involving of local community in the activities, is the motor of social and cultural developing. Finally, we promoted inclusive education, non-formal teaching methods and innovative ways of teaching. We trained the teachers in participating schools to teach using different innovative and inclusive approaches based on our mutual experience and knowledge we have. All this new experience will be used the following years in each school.