The primary goals of a project The Roots of Europe are social and educational value of European cultural heritage, social inclusion and strengthening the profiles of teaching profession. The project reflects the needs of partner schools and preschools. In all participating institutions from five European countries Slovenia (as project coordinator), Bulgaria, Portugal, Romania and Turkey there is a decline in interest of own cultural heritage. At the same time the inner borders of Europe are vanishing and the migration within is easier than ever before. Within the groups, we are encountering new varieties of issues with children of immigrant families while integrating into the new social environment (such as language, lack of social connections, different customs and foods). With our project partners, we will exchange successful methods and good practices for integration of children of different social, ethnic or cultural backgrounds. We are trying to raise awareness and deepen the European values such as non-discrimination, justice, solidarity and social inclusion. Main project goals are deepening the competences for fostering inclusion, connecting with European countries and transfer of innovations gained with mobility (work methods, cooperation with parents, inclusion of families with different cultural backgrounds), getting to know the narrower and wider social and cultural environment and intercultural differences and customs (celebrations, finger games, children’s games now and then). With main activities as my grand moms bread, my town once, customs here and abroad, folklore, clothes and footwear we are encouraging interests in own traditions and compare it to traditions of children from other cultural environments of participating preschools and schools and traditions of partner European countries. Anticipated results for teachers and preschool teachers are getting to know new innovative work methods, enhancing ICT technologies, improving foreign languages, familiarization with foreign school systems and cultures, collaborations with parents, which will enable more openness for changes and innovations in educational process and all of this will elevate the quality of preschool education. The children will get to know their culture, traditions and customs far better and be more open and tolerant to different ones at the same time. At the start and at the end of the project, children and parents will be invited to participate in a questioner that will determine how well they know their own and other cultural heritages. During project phases an active learning method will be applied especially KWL method (what I know, what I would like to know, what I have learned). Participating in this project will be educational institutions employees, children and their parents and grandparents, local community, WIC program students and external institutions (museums, art galleries, libraries, schools). The project activities will be spread among all partner institutions. An official WEB page will be developed as well as a presentation on Erasmus+ platform. The presentation will consist of description of activities, DVDs with songs, dances and games gathered a collection of finger games, bread baking cookbook and children’s games, which we will bring into our own teaching. With other teachers, we will exercise and disseminate the project across the Europe on eTwinning portal. In all participating schools and preschools, we will exploit the possibility to spread our acquired experiences and competences on local and nationwide conferences and meetings and in local media.
The project Roots of Europe is a response to the times we live in. The main goals were social and educational value of European cultural heritage, social inclusion and strengthening the profiles of teaching profession as reflected the needs of partner schools and preschools. All participating institutions noticed that there was a decline in the interest of own cultural heritage before going into this project. The inner borders of Europe are vanishing and the migration within European countries is easier than ever before. Within the groups, we are still encountering new varieties of issues with children of immigrant families while integrating into the new social environment (such as language barriers, lack of social connections, different customs and foods). With our partners we exchanged successful methods and good practices for integration of children of different social, ethnic or cultural backgrounds. We raised awareness and deepened EU values such as non-discrimination, justice, solidarity and social inclusion. The main goals of the project were: deepening the competences for fostering inclusion, connecting with EU countries and transfer of innovations gained with mobility (work methods, cooperation with parents, inclusion of families with different cultural backgrounds), getting to know the narrower and wider social and cultural environment and getting to know intercultural differences, similarities and customs. With main activities such as My grandmoms bread, My town once, Customs here and abroad, Folklore, Clothes and footwear, Old finger and movement games we encouraged interests in our own traditions and compared it to traditions of children from other cultural environments. The anticipated results for teachers and preschool teachers such as getting to know new innovative work methods, enhancing ICT technologies, improving foreign languages, familiarisation with foreign school systems and cultures, collaborations with parents, all contributed to a greater openness for changes and innovations in educational process. The children got to know their own culture, traditions and customs far better and at the same time they strengthened their tolerance and raised awareness on the issue of difference. At the beginning of the project the parents, teachers and preschool teachers were invited to participate in a questioner that determined their attitude towards their own and other cultural heritages. Due to the Corona virus epidemic we couldn’t repeat the same questioner, so we prepared a new questioner for teachers and preschool teachers at the end of the project. The questioner showed a higher understanding of the importance of introducing different topics of the project in the curriculum. We extended the project for one year and concluded it with a meeting in Ljubljana, in June 2021 where we followed all health measures. During the project we applied active learning methods and a special KWL method (what I know, what I would like to know, what I have learned). We included a variety of participants in the project. To list some of the participants: educational institutions employees, including technical staff (janitors, cooks, directing and management staff), children, their parents and grandparents, local community and external institutions (museums, galleries, libraries, other schools, national galleries, educational institutions, folklore groups, experts and craftsmen). We carried out five mobility meeting where all the attendees got the opportunity to get to know the educational institutions of our project partners, to explore the differences and similarities of educational systems and to share positive examples. The project activities were spread among all partner institutions. We designed an official public WEB page of the project https://rootsofeuropa.webnode.com/, created a Facebook group https://www.facebook.com/groups/1873653845987139, and posted a presentation of the project with description of the activities on Erasmus+. The presentation of the project consists of a description of activities, DVDs of songs, dances and games, a collection of finger games and a cookbook with gathered recipes of traditional methods of baking bread. We carried out two eTwinning projects. The first one was Roots of Europe 2018/19 and the second one was Roots of Europe Let’s know each other with music 2019/20. For their work on the project several partners received Quality labels both on national and European level. A lot of partners from different countries also joined the eTwinning projects. With these two projects we expanded the Roots of Europe project throughout Europe on eTwinning portal and on our own personal social networks and groups. All partners disseminated results in connection to the project. We published articles in newspapers and publications, we presented the project in local, national and international meetings and conferences, on TV, we prepared exhibitions, presentations and workshops.