Our Erasmus + Project is called “Conquering Books Again” and it involves five countries which are: Italy, Poland, Turkey, Romania and Spain. These five partners are primary and lower secondary schools whose students´ages are similar to each other (from 6 to 13 years old) It is an education project mainly focused on “IMPROVING BOOK READING, TRANSFORMING KNOWLEDGE INTO PRACTICAL ACTIVITIES” and leading our students to read more, to be active participants in Arts, ICT, Media, Literature, Social and Volunteering activities. Our goal is to communicate that a book can be “read” in different ways; it can be sung, it can be dramatized,… In this way we intend to bring our students closer to the pleasure of reading. All this is born of our concern for the low percentage of students who today, with all available audiovisual media, are losing their habit and pleasure in reading. The main goals of our project have been: -Promote European integration and decrease stereotypes-Increase book reading habits-Improve skills for creating book, magazine, taking short movie and writing essays-Foster the exchange of good practices and learning to European standards-Improve communication skills in foreign languages, ICT skills-Increase responsibility, confidence, initiative and the feeling of independence-Foster understanding and responsiveness to social, linguistic and cultural diversity-Broaden personal and interpersonal skill-Observe other educational systems and teaching methodsIn general, participants have been primary school students of middle class background who live in industrial town or cities, with the exception of the Romanian school located in a rural area. The activities have been offered to all or a large part of the students of the schools, so that many more children have participated than have benefitted from the mobility, far exceeding the minimum amount of 50 established in the project.All countries established in the first transnational meeting met the criteria for the selection of beneficiaries and gave importance to gender equality in the selection of students. As reflected in the mobility data, the number of beneficiaries has increased with respect to the number reflected in the project application.The Project has included two types of activities. The main ones and side ones. The main activities has involved reading different types of books such as novels, biographies and books relating to philosophy and poetry and creative activities such as creating scenarios, writting essays, creating poetry magazines and producing short movies. Each partner has independently read national books and, when we came together in the LTTA meetings, we developed the main activities together in English.Side activities have related to art, music/dance, sport, cuisine and have provided dynamic lifestyles using the cultural heritage as a key component. Prior to each mobility, research had been carried out in each of the countries, exhibitions made in the form of posters, PowerPoints, videos, crafts, philosophical books and exercises related to the main activities to be developed in the meeting.As a result, participants have been able to work directly with students and teachers from other countries, reaching common goals that have allowed positives changes. Students’ social, personal and interpersonal skills have been improved and stereotypes and prejudices have been reduced. Team-work and ICT skills have been developed. Students’ participation in all scheduled activities has helped them discover new skills and make them more active in their daily life. Teachers have had the opportunity to exchange, explore and learn about other educational systems. They also have improved their language and communication skills, managerial and negotiation skills as well as team spirit. Impact on institutions has lead the creation of a trans-national network increasing the schools’ European dimensión and prestige. Families have been in direct contact with other students and this has increased tolerance and has reduced stereotypes. The relationship between schools and local communities has also improved. We trust that the repetition and settlement of the way of working carried out with future students who are given an active, creative and dynamic role will improve their social and intersocial skills; They will increase their sense of responsibility, effort, self-esteem, confidence and autonomy by exposing or representing the results of their products to a known and unknown audience.We believe that all this will result in the development of their basic skills, necessary for their future careers.

Nowadays, environmental issues represent a major global concern as they affect the quality of our lifestyle. Since most of the environmental challenges facing humanity are the consequences of human harmful activities, we, as educators, feel that it is our duty to educate students in this respect in order to become responsible adults. With the project “ Be-Friend with nature”, 5 schools in Bulgaria, Turkey, Poland, Greece and Italy aim to provide participants with a wide range of opportunities so as to enhance their awareness on environmental issues and enrich knowledge in the field thanks to innovative teaching and learning methods. Hence, they will do presentations, analysis, search activities in a collaborative and stimulating atmosphere that encourages communication with their peers.Project objectives can be summarized as follows:• to enhance participants’ knowledge and degree of awareness towards environmental global issues • to motivate students develop a proactive attitude and think globally• to foster the integration of innovative strategies such as flexible and personalized learning, digital story telling, gamification, video-based learning, project-based learning in the schools' curriculum• to raise students’ interest in learning foreign languages, especially English, and develop their English language communicative skills• to promote the use of CLIL in the Environmental Education subject• to improve key competences and skills in ICT and digital tools• to develop participants’ sense of tolerance, active citizenship and ability to overcome cultural and linguistic obstacles• to improve pedagogical expertise and experience• to provide a European dimension to the educational process in all partner schoolsStudents aged ….. will represent the main target group and they will cooperate in transnational teams so as to exchange impressions, ideas, knowledge, cultural aspects of their home countries. We estimate that a total number of approximately 400 students will be indirect beneficiaries of the project at partnership level.Project products will consist of:-Official project website-E-twinning project space-E-booklet of Innovative Strategies with lesson plans and original examples from all five schools-Urban sprawl photo album -E-booklet of endangered species-Digital story book on deforestation and endangered species- Educational Video games database-E-booklet of the international and local NGOs/institutions working for environmentProject partners have decided to share project responsibilities and each school will contribute to the project, follow the project calendar and deadlines established within the partnership.The project outcomes and outputs will generate an inspiring potential. All project products will be available for free use on project website, in the e-twinning platform. The planned LTTAs will be highlights in the project; an effective learning process environment based on participants’ experience and exchange employing various methods that focus mainly on practice. These will foster strengthened motivation, team spirit, increased self-confidence, creativity for constructive activities and further lifelong skills.Participants will benefit from the undeniable experience and expertise of professionals and the schools’ associated partners in this project. By applying a constructivist approach, adults will assist students to transfer the gained information and apply it to a modern and dynamic school environment that will lead to a higher rank quality of educational services across Europe

In light of the European Year of Cultural Heritage2018 framework, we whish to valuably contributeby working with chidren aged from 05 to 08 in order to raise their awareness and encourage thepromotion of the cultural heritage of Europe.The Stories, Fairytales and Legends all over Europe project gives the oportunity to 5 schools from 5different EU Countries (Latvia, Turkey Romania, Spain, Italy) to get in touch and work together.The project is developed based on a number of common needs among all partners. Morespecifically, reducing students' tendency to be introverted and withdrawn, to display antisocial andaggressive behaviors is a central common need. Some more needs are to cultivate freedom ofthought and cultural awareness and knowledge in order to equip the pupils with the necessary skillsto sucessfully integrate in a complex multicultural society. Finally, a main goal is to render the schoolcurriculum wider and internationalised and inspire pupils and teachers to seek ongoing self-development.The main aim is to provide our pupils with all the benefits of the European cultural heritage. This willfunction as a means of fascinating the children in order to motivate them to improve their schoolachievement. By manipulating stories as a core material, pupils’ interest in the topic of the project willbe safely raised so that they will be induced to willingly contribute to the programme. Pupils owninnate love of myths, fairy tales and stories. Stories are a strong means of teaching about life ingeneral, the self and others. Storytelling is a teaching tool which helps children develop theirimagination, empathy, creativity, respect, acceptance, tolerance, appreciation for diverse culturesand induce a positive mentality and attitude among all project participants indepndently of theirnational, racial and religious particularities.Objectives:– to raise awareness regarding the shared features and differences among the 5 European cultures– to develop creativity and literacy skills of the pupils coming from 5 different EU schools– to increase pupils’ willingness to express their feelings and thoughts– to encourage the use of the storytelling technique throughout the curriculumΤhe following activities following Fleming's VARK model are designed in such a way as to address alllearning styles of pupils and fulfill the objectives of the project:- visual learners: a logo, digital stories, questionnaires, Erasmus+ corners, wrist bands andbookmarks- oral learners: group discussions, email exchanges, web-chat on a Facebook page or an eTwinningPlatform.- reading or writing learners: PowerPoint presentations, magazine stories, Puppet plays scripts,dictionary and flyers.- kinesthetic learners: construction of materials from the “Stories Arts and Crafts” workshops andcarnival creations.These activities will iduce successfull learning to the pupils, especially those of a migrantbackground. Also the cooperation between schools and families, schools and external stakeholderswill be promoted through the planned projec activiites.The directly involved target group consists of 125 teachers who can practically acknowledge the importance of adjusting teaching materials to match the different learning styles of their pupils. Theindirectly involved target groups consist of the pupils and their families as well as the localcommunities of the partners.The targeted results to be yielded are:-questionnaires-Erasmus+ corners-the logo of the current project-presentations of the cities, countries and schools involved in this project-presentations of national myths, legends, stories and fairy tales-five digital stories-one exhibition to display and promote all materials created in the “Stories Arts and Crafts”workshops-five scripts suitable for five Puppet plays-one thematic carnival (by using characters from myths, stories, fairytales, etc.)-a dictionary-two magazines-ten lesson plans-three webpages of the current project-promotional materials: wrist bands, flyers and bookmarks-the project’s e-brochure-the DVD of the projectThe activities are planned so as to promote social coherence by developing creativity, literacy skills,innovation, ICT skills, intercultural skills, social cultural competences, communal spirit, andcompetence of learning.The outcomes of this partnership proposal is expected to reflect the learning experiences of theparticipants. A main objective of the project is to motivate other educationalists and people, who areinterested in holding events based on the same topic, to use the produced materials.Our school’s international cooperation will result in expanding our school’s institutional developmentplan.The school curricula will acquire international features as the teaching tools and materials createdduring the partnership programme will continue to be used and integrated in our schools curricula.

Context/ Background to the ProjectThis project was developed to meet the strategy of the EU Commission for 2020, the aim of which is to improve basic skills of the new generation to develop a better future of the European Union. Necessary basic skills in Science, Mathematics, Language and Technology need to be developed by transforming more formal learning activities into play. As the project team, the coordinators of the partner schools, discussed the issue (how to improve lack of basic skills in pre-school curricula) and stated the needs in our schools, taking teachers' observations into account. Lack of practical knowledge/training became the main problems according to our study that needed to be promptly solved. As both practical knowledge and theoretical knowledge are important phases of learning, they need to be combined to provide children with effective learning at an early age. It is not enough to remember given information and gain technical knowledge as learning is a difficult process which produces relatively permanent changes. Children learn best through practical experiences and when they are having fun.Description of Activities UndertakenSince this is a kindergarten level project, the level of activities were basic but still had some element of challenge to promote thinking skills. The children have had focussed learning through clubs in science, maths, technology and language in a very enjoyable, simple and accessible way.As a group, we decided to include all children in this project rather than target groups of children. This way, we could make the biggest impact on the largest number of children.SCIENCE CLUBSAll teachers prepared activities with practical experiments for the children to take part in. The children became scientists, carrying out their own experiments. Each partner studied a chosen scientist with their children. Presentations of this work were given to the children in Portugal. Each school prepared a magazine all about the science work completed with the children. Samples from each magazine were taken and compiled into a collective Science Magazine for our children. In Portugal, the children carried out some experiments for us all to observe and an experimental workshop was set up for teachers to take part in.MATHS CLUBAll teachers prepared activities with practical maths activities for the children to take part in. These were presented to all partners at the meeting in Italy. All partners attempted to teach chess to our very young children but what we discovered was that it was just too complicated for our children to grasp. This was the only unsuccessful element in the whole project. All teachers took maths outdoors and into the wider environment. We have looked for geometrical shapes outdoors. In Italy, we observed the children completing various practical maths activities and took part in a practical activity with a specialist teacher based on geometrical shapes, using clay. We also took maths out into the environment and completed a maths hunt in the supermarket.LANGUAGE CLUBThe children worked hard to create a theatre play in English. As English is the mother tongue for the UK group, the children produced a long reenactment of a traditional story for the children in the partner schools. Each school chose one song to record and present to the children in Latvia. We have spent time learning new songs in English. Role play is a very important aspect in language acquisition. Children can reenact things they see in real life. All partners gave their children lots of role play opportunities in their classrooms and outdoors. This work was presented to partners in Latvia. The children have watched cartoons and programs/films in English to help them to learn the language. TECHNOLOGY CLUBMany educational computer games for children were introduced. Favourite websites were used for educational games also. As a group, we were in agreement that Technology was not only computers and gadgets but building/architecture, food technology, design and creating also. All of this work completed in our schools was presented by partners in the UK. Partners took part in an outdoor technology activity led by an external outdoor specialist teacher and had the opportunity to observe various technology activities carried out with the children.The project website was created as planned and e-twinning accounts were set up by all partners. The project includes 4 short term exchanges of teachers and there were 20 mobilities planned for each school. OBJECTIVES -Creating an active pre-school environment inside/outside the classes -Providing holistic learning -Developing ICT, Language and Digital skills of children -Developing interest through mathematics, language, science, technology -Improving self-esteemImpactWe achieved all objectives set out at the beginning of this project. Digital competence has improved as well as basic skills across the 4 areas.