The aim of the activities was to raise the level of English of two teachers and thus recruit additional staff to teach English in our kindergarten. The focus was on acquiring knowledge of appropriate conversation and vocabulary for the pre-school period and on implementing integrated English lessons. In this way, we wanted to increase the amount of time that children aged 3 to 6 spend in contact with a foreign language. In addition, we wanted to acquire new forms and methods of working with pre-school children who are coming into contact with a foreign language for the first time. Through international cooperation, we wanted to acquire new activities and materials, and to give two teachers the experience of teaching in a foreign language environment, thus improving their ability to prepare and implement English lessons. The second objective was to improve the quality of forest pedagogy. We wanted to build on our extensive knowledge in this field by exchanging new ideas and good practice, especially in the area of sharing new STEAM knowledge and involving parents in the activities of the forest kindergarten. The third objective was to improve our knowledge in the area of kindergarten management, focusing on working with parents and working in a multicultural and multilingual environment.
Before applying, we analysed the needs of our kindergarten and found that we wanted to promote three priority areas: teaching English, forest pedagogy and cooperation and work with the parents of the children involved. We wanted to raise the level of English teaching in terms of using new teaching methods, working in groups and increasing the number of hours children spend in contact with a foreign language. We combined this need with the need to acquire new competences in the teaching and use of English at a higher level for our kindergarten's teaching staff. We wanted to expand our extensive knowledge in the field of forest pedagogy and build on it by exchanging ideas and good practices with related organisations. We also wanted to pay special attention to acquiring new expertise in the field of working with parents, with a focus on multiculturalism. After an analysis, we realised that all the competences and skills listed above could best be acquired through international cooperation, so we decided to apply for the Erasmus+ KA101 project and thus obtain the necessary funding.