The initiative this project takes is to bring books and reading in front of any other educational activity; to open students the path towards enjoying reading and realizing that it is the safest way to becoming a well developed adult. The project is going to be educational and it will focus on ‘ENHANCING STUDENTS’ INTEREST INTO BOOK READING AND CONVERTING KNOWLEDGE INTO PRACTICAL ACTIVITIES’ as well as on raising our students motivation for reading as a habit, making them more actively involved in the schools’ activities and school subjects such as ICT, Arts, Media, Literary studies, Volunteering and Social activities. Therefore the project focus is on ‘educating’ and forming ‘active citizenship’. The participants are from five countries: IT, DE, LV, RO, TR. Starting from the idea that a child who reads books will be an adult who thinks we consider books to be the most important instrument to developing critical thinking language skills and reading abilities, very important competencies for acquiring per-sonal success, economic welfare and social relationships. The influence that books have over people’s intellect can never be compared to the influence that radio, computer, TV or smart phones have on people, which is much more superficial and visio-nary. Education is the most powerful weapon that a nation can have in order to suppress poverty; is the most important strategy that people can use in order to develop their economical, social and democratic condition. Books must be seen as the strongest pillars of education, and men have to re-discover their value. OBJECTIVES: The objectives of the partnership are: - to form in students the behavior of reading daily and finding pleasure in opening books (at least 60% if the student involved will find pleasure in reading every day) - to raise the percentage of involvement in activities related to Arts, ICT, Media, Social, Literary and Volunteering activities (at least 45% of students will end up being more intrinsically motivated and more active) - to teach students how to use a book in order to produce their own products (at least 60% of students) - to develop critical thinking skills (minimum 40% of students will improve their critical thinking skills) - to develop ICT skills (about 60% of the students will improve their Digital skills) ACTIVITIES: The actions that will take place during the implementation are of two types. On the one hand the students will be involved in activities that will imply reading different genres of books (philosophical books, novels, poetry books, biographical books) on the other hand they would have to perform activities that will help in developing their creativeness (write scenarios, essays, develop a poetry magazine and shoo short movies). Before the short exchanges of students will take place every partner school will have to organize local activities of ‘reading national books’. During the meetings the content of the nation's books to read Will be discussed with the other partners and all of the activities from the meeting will be performed by all the partners. METHODOLOGY: Once we had begun to implement the project, project clubs Will be organized in the schools. A number of about 50 student will get involved in these clubs, and they will be distributed in five teams dealing with 5 different subtopics: Literature-Reading Team, ICT Team, Culture related Team, Magazine Team and Arts Team. In agreement with the implementation stage the teams will receive different tasks that they will have to accomplish in certain given time. The students from all teams will be actively involved in solving the tasks and they will be coordinated by the team of teachers involved in the implementation. Each team will have one responsible teacher who will supervise their work. PARTICIPANT: The focal point of our project will be represented by our students. We have prepared all the stages and designed all the activities for them to meet their needs. Teachers role will be off supervising and coordinating students. Representative of the administrative stuff will also be included as participants. Indirect beneficiaries will be represented by the parents and various members from the local community. IMPACT: Both the direct and indirect participants will be greatly influenced by the partnership. The chance that the project offers to the participants, to get in direct contact with each other at an international level, to work together for obtaining mutual goals will bring positive impact and changes on the participating institutions. STUDENTS: We aim to develop our students’ communication and social skills, as well as personal and interpersonal ones. We will stimulate peer from peer education, we will boost their feeling of being an important part of the European community. TEACHERS: Teachers will be more experienced and will learn from their peers’ experience to organize different local activities and to organize international project departures.
The participants involved in the project have been from five countries: Italy, Germany, Latvia, Romania, Turkey. The project started from the idea that a child who reads books will be an adult who thinks, books are the most important means to develop critical thinking, language skills and reading abilities. All partners have worked on the belief that education is powerful and it is the most important strategy that people can use in order to develop their economic, social and democratic condition. Through the school support, students can effectively learn how to read a book from a critical point of view, they can think about different aspects of life, values. The objectives of the partnership have been: - to form in students the behaviour of reading daily and finding pleasure in reading books, also different genres of books, - to raise the percentage of involvement in activities related to Arts, ICT, Media, Social, Literary and Volunteering activities, -to teach students how to use a book in order to produce their own products, developing creativeness and spirit of enterprise, -to develop ICT skills, which have played an important role too, throughout the project, - to stimulate peer from peer education, - to boost the feelings of being an important part of the European Community. The actions that have taken place during the implementation have been: Involving the students in activities that implied reading different genres of literature (philosophical books, novels, poetry, biographies) from their own national literature and working on the extracts to create the tasks as required in each meeting (writing scenarios, essays, developing a poetry magazine and shooting short movies). The teachers’ support has been relevant in each activity. They have coordinated and supervised their work. The students have used creativeness and ICT skills and developed critical thinking , through the discussion with other partners, through exchange of ideas, besides students’ communication and social skills, have been developed, as well as personal and interpersonal ones. In the first meeting in Turkey we have planned all the activities and defined the tasks for each country. So: Erasmus corners, a project website, brochures, an e- book of the project have been created. Meeting in Italy and results: The title of the event was Reading Novels & writing scenarios. The students in groups have worked on some scenes of the Italian Novel “The Adventures of Pinocchio” and after having been explained how to write a scenario, they have written it and performed on a stage. Meeting in Romania and results: The title of the event was: Reading Simplified Philosophy books & Writing essays. Students and teachers divided into different groups have taken part to the lessons, through observation but also through activities on the topic “Philosophy books". The students have discussed on five topics: Life, Love, Nature, Family, Friendship. Students have been divided into five groups and five essays have been created. Meeting in Latvia and results The title of the event was: Poetry reading – Magazine creation. After a workshop on the topic “Creating a magazine". Divided into mixed groups, students created a final poetry magazine. Meeting in Germany and results The title of the event was: Reading biography – filming a short movie. The students had to read the biography of a famous writer of their country and shoot a short movie about his/her life. The chance that the project offered to the participants, to get in direct contact with each other at an international level, to work together to obtain mutual goals have brought positive impact and changes on the participating institutions. Both the direct and indirect participants have been greatly influenced by the partnership. Teachers’ feedback is positive: they are now more experienced and have learnt from their peers’ experience to organize different local activities and to organize international project departures. One of the most relevant result of the project has been the impact on students in term of ‘educating’ and forming ‘active citizenship’. The most part of the families have taken part to the project with enthusiasm and then they have confirmed their will to host other children in case of future projects. The experience has been positive from many points of view, but according to the feedbacks, this raise of the feeling of being part of a European Community has been the most significant as longer-t