This project "The European Child :Learning by doing the 3'C's-connect, construct and create'' is based on the Cooperation and Innovation for Good Practices takeover. The project is composed of 6 pre-educational institutions from different countries (Bulgaria, Turkey, Italy, Latvia,England, Finland) with 934 children aged 3-7 (85 special needs) and teachers with a different experience, knowledge, beliefs, but common objectives: 1. To develop students’ learning ability to construct knowledge by doing. 2. To prepare 21st century students for a global society by developing; Learning Skills which are critical thinking and problem solving, communications and collaboration, creativity and innovation skills of students. Literacy Skills which are Information and communication technologies (ICT) literacy skills of students. Life Skills which are flexibility and adaptability, initiative and self-direction, social and cross-cultural interaction, productivity and accountability of students. Language Skills in which we aim to develop students' listening and speaking skills and creating reading and writing awareness in a foreign language and their mother tongue. 3. To enhance the quality of early childhood education and ensure a good start in education for all, developing learner centred and age appropriate pedagogical framework in teaching to develop key competences and skills ensuring that the benefits of early childhood education are carried through to primary school and other school education levels. 4. To develop teachers’ knowledge and skills to create learner centred classroom atmosphere and teaching children basic skills and research activities and with active learning teaching method. 5. To develop quality of education in the participating organizations and European countries. 6. To develop teachers' foreign language skills, using innovative teaching methods and information communications technology literacy skills. 7. To develop innovative didactic materials with the children participation. 8. To develop process based learning: Learners create meaning and context by exploring new ideas and experiences, generating hypotheses, problem solving. This project aiming to provide an innovative, constructive, learner centred and age appropriate pedagogical framework and materials aiming to provide benefit teaching. We will be working with Constructivist Teaching / Learning Method and its close relative theory ''Active Learning'' which are fundamental to the full development of children’s abilities. We think early childhood is critical period to acquire key competences, skills and life skills. Because these competences and skills will be acquired easier by the children in early childhood and it gradually declines after.When children acquire these achievements actively in preschool , a good foundation will laid for successful accomplishments in both school education and daily life.The child who is learning by doing in preschool would be more active in following grades.So, this project will contribute to both enhancing the quality of early childhood education and following education life of children. In order to children's active involvement in the learning process, teachers will encourage children to observe and connect the new knowledge with their prior knowledge and construct and create their own knowledge consequently when students learn by doing, permanent learning will occur. We prepared four teaching/learning activities in order to realize the objectives of our project: To develop these skills and to provide active involvement of the students four different learning activities are determined and methodological materials will be produced in this process.“ Child of nature''; In this activity teachers will enable students to gaining experience in natural enviroment and gain flexibility adaptability, initiative and self-direction, productivity and accountability skills. 2)“I am an artist” ; In this activity children will acquire artistic skills,collaboration and creativity skills with creative art implementations. 3)"One child, two languages” ; children will acquire listening and speaking skills and reading and writing awareness in a foreign language and their mother tongue by We have planned many activities to fulfill this project -Project work group set up in each organization. -Surveys will be used for the teachers and parents at the beginning and at the end of the project. -Project brochure will be prepared. -Project information board established in every organization. -Project website will be prepared. -Teachers will organize parent meetings. -E-twinning project will be prepared. At the end of the project, students will acquire learning skills, literacy skills, life skills and language skills by paticipating learning process actively. Teachers’ knowledge and skills to create learner centred classroom atmosphere,foreign language skills, information communications technology literacy skills will improve.
This project "The European Child: Learning by doing the 3'C's-connect, construct and create'' was based on the Cooperation and Innovation for Good Practices takeover. The project was composed of 6 pre-educational institutions from different countries (Bulgaria, Turkey, Italy, Latvia, England, Finland) with 934 children aged 3-7 (85 special needs) and teachers with a different experience, knowledge, beliefs, but common objectives: 1. To develop students’ learning ability to construct knowledge by doing. 2. To prepare 21st-century students for a global society by developing; -Learning Skills which are critical thinking and problem solving, communications and collaboration, creativity and innovation skills of students. -Literacy Skills are Information and communication technologies (ICT) literacy skills of students. - Life Skills which are flexibility and adaptability, initiative and self-direction, social and cross-cultural interaction. - Language Skills in which we aim to develop students' listening and speaking skills and creating reading and writing awareness in a foreign language and their mother tongue. 3. To enhance the quality of early childhood education and ensure a good start in education for all, developing a learner-centered and age-appropriate pedagogical framework in teaching to develop key competencies and skills ensuring that the benefits of early childhood education are carried through to primary school and other school education levels. 4. To develop teachers’ knowledge and skills to create a learner-centered classroom atmosphere and teaching children basic skills and research activities and with the active learning teaching method. 5. To develop the quality of education in the participating organizations and European countries. 6. To develop teachers' foreign language skills, using innovative teaching methods and information communications technology literacy skills. 7. To develop innovative didactic materials with the children participating. This project was innovative, constructive, learner-centered and materials aiming to provide benefit teaching. We worked with Constructivist Teaching / Learning Method and its close relative theory ''Active Learning'' which are fundamental to the full development of children’s abilities. Because these competencies and skills will be acquired easier by the children in early childhood and it gradually declines after. When children acquire these achievements actively in preschool, a good foundation will be laid for successful accomplishments in both school education and daily life. The child who is learning by doing in preschool would be more active in the following grades. So, this project contributed to both enhancing the quality of early childhood education and following the education life of children. In order to children's active involvement in the learning process, teachers encouraged children to observe and connect the new knowledge with their prior knowledge and construct and create their own knowledge consequently. Children learned by doing. We prepared four teaching/learning activities in different countries, in order to realize the objectives of our project. Methodological materials were produced in this process. 1. Teaching-learning seminar in Finland, theme "Child of Nature". In this activity participants activity acquired new skills, learned about children learning in natural environment, initiative and self-direction, productivity and accountability skills. 2)Teaching-learning seminar in London, theme “I am an artist”. In this seminar participants acquired artistic skills, collaboration and creativity skills with creative art implementations. 3)Teaching-learning seminar in Turkey, theme "One child, two languages”. Participants learned how to acquired children listening and speaking skills and reading and writing in a foreign language and their mother tongue by active learning. 4) Teaching-learning activity in Sicily, theme "Robotic Coding". Teachers together with children learned to be programmers and have fun finding paths, using networks and doing online games. We had many activities to fulfill this project: -Surveys for the teachers and parents. -Project brochure. -Project website. -Parent meetings. -The E-twinning project. During of the project, children acquired learning skills, literacy skills, life skills and language skills by participating learning process actively. Teachers’ knowledge and skills to create a learner-centered atmosphere were improve. In during the project were created 22 teaching materials about themes- I'M ARTIST(THE ART DVD), ROBOTING CODE, ONE CHILD TWO LANGUAGE, NATURE SCRAPBOOK. Website www.learningbydoing.lv is the key tool for dissemination of project results during the project implementation and in the long term.