During the period of two years, 70 students from five European countries worked together on the project entitle 'Music Shapes Europe'. These students have had the chance to display their talent and creativity while familiarizing themselves with their own folk music, as well as finding out about their partners‘ heritage of folk music and language via their created project website www.https://mseur.wordpress.com/, common rehearsals, discussions, creative group work and live performances in multinational teams.During the first year, students in each country, worked in groups, chose the national songs that would be sung during the concerts (4 by country)and created a project website, in which they uploaded:- their profiles - a glossary of everyday sentences in their mother tongue - videos of sketches displaying these sentences - the scores, lyrics and videos of the songs that would be sung during the concerts The uploaded materials were reviewed and discussed by all partner schools.Each group learnt their 4 national songs as well as 4 songs from their partners (1 per country) : these song were rehearsed to perform internationally at the final year mobility - concert in Spain. Language teachers helped their students with pronunciation of the lyrics of the partners songs, and workshops were organized by Italian, Spanish and French teams to introduce their partners with the particularities of their language, phonetically speaking (sounds, rhythm and stress). At the end of this mobility, the students performed their first concert, each team singing 3 of their songs on their own and one with their partners (so 5 songs were sung in international groups). Europass mobility tool was used to validate the outcomes.To achieve a more sophisticated project result – to sing as many songs altogether as possible - a transnational meeting was held at the beginning of the second year,in Slovakia. During this meeting Music and English teachers from all partner schools worked on all the songs of the projects. Each national group taught their songs and their pronunciation to the other groups. During the meeting, the teachers also decided to improve the quality of the final concert by involving the musicians of the Italian school orchestra. Each music teacher decided on the songs that would be accompanied by the orchestra and sent the scores for the different instruments provided by the Italian school. After this meeting, teachers were able to teach all the international songs to their students. The second year was thus devoted to the learning of international songs. The students met on a second occasion in Denmark to attend workshops on Danish and Slovak language, as well as to perform a second concert during which they sang their national songs and 10 songs altogether. Once again, Europass mobility tool was used to validate the outcomes.The students met for the third and last time in Italy to perform the final concert, which was the outcome of the two-year-project and was recorded for the final product. Students sang only 5 songs in national teams and 15 songs altogether, thus reflecting the evolution of their work.Throughout the two years, we had an artistic contest to choose the best logo The logos from all partners were uploaded on the website and the teachers at the initial teachers‘ meeting in France voted for the best one, which became the project logo. Groups of IT students worked on and prepared the videos . Each concert was recorded and uploaded, so that it is possible to see the evolution and improvement of the quality of the work. Students also edited videos of each mobility .Their full videos can be watched on the project website as well as in the DVD released by the Italian school .Students with their teachers also went to the concerts of folk music or met the folk singers. Ours students are to become active European citizens, and Europe is rich of many different cultures. We strongly believe it is important for them to discover other cultures, to be curious of their neighbours, to accept differences as a strength. Thus, through a common theme, folk music, our young European citizens fostered creativity, co-operation,communication, usage of ICT , foreign languages, which are crucial skills in modern society. Teachers were also fostered to use and exchange innovative teaching methods (parts of CLIL), especially in preparing and carrying out international teaching/learning activities and the workshop; teachers of Music, IT, foreign languages and headmasters successfully cooperated among themselves and with their own students, with colleagues and students from abroa

"What is a “rhapsody”? According to Oxford Dictionary, it is a “free instrumental composition in one extended movement, typically one that is emotional or exuberant in character”. This definition contains four key-words for our project: free, movement, emotional, exuberant. That’s the way our students are. Following such a vision of our students as a sort of “melody”, our project aims to make a “creative” connection between our teenagers’ inner universe and the natural environment they live in. We believe that one of the most relevant aspects of a teenager's growth, for a full self-knowledge, is the harmonious development of his creative and expressive area. Music, dance, body expression, art, sports, these are favourite activities for many of them, and these can increase their motivation to learn. All project activities will therefore be organized to allow pupils to create and express themselves around a theme that is common to all partner countries, located in coastal regions: the sea, in its various shapes (cultural, historical, economic, environmental).The inhabitants of coastal regions have always had a special relationship with the sea. Ours are lands of sailors, expert fishermen, hardworking women. It represents the natural theatre of man and his history: place of exchange, civilization, languages, cultures, arts, ethnic groups, thought. Furthermore, the Goal n.14 of the 2030 Sustainable Development Goals Agenda is about the seas: ""Conserve and sustainably use the oceans, seas and marine resources for sustainable development"". Taking into account all these aspects, the Project wants to make pupils aware that the sea represents the greatest message of peace, respect for the environment, disdain for violence and prevarication, rejection of social injustices, love of difference, passion for communication and dialogue, cult of freedom.Around the project main idea we have selected our priorities. We will lead the students to understand the importance of protecting our environment and acquire basic skills and key competences. They will learn more about other European countries culture and tradition, mainly about music, songs, plastic arts. In each meeting, partners will choose a different meaningful aspect of the project topic: Environment protection, the sea in our history /traditions/ culture, economy and tourism. Concrete results of this projects are mainly ""art products"" and events, linked to music, dance, play, body expression, handcrafts. They are described in details in the webform section devoted to LTTA. Some examples: folk dances and folk songs, songs about the sea in English and French, games, plays, amber bracelets, construction of drums, game of tracks and map explorations, excursions, sailing, cup printing/T-shirt printing, potery, reinterpretation of famous paintings about the sea, Flash Mob. Each song, dance, workshop and activity will become a selection of photos and videos to be collected in the project website and shown at the final meeting in Italy. A CD will be produced, containing all these materials, with the title of the project ""Sea Rhapsody in Europe"".All planned activities are closely linked to the priorities and topics of the project. All pupils participating in the mobility will therefore develop a natural respect for the environment they will visit, for the cultural specificities of the families that will host them, and will have the opportunity to express themselves while having fun, in activities that involve fantasy , originality and personal interpretation.The Portuguese school is an ETwinning school and its contribution will be relevant for the creation of a project in support of the Erasmus+ project. During the first months of the project, all teachers and students who intend to take part to the activities will register on the portal, in order to form an eTwinning Group within eTwinning Live. The project activities are aimed at achieve the progressive change of our educational institutions and their European dimension. Through the project activities, the participating teachers will acquire new techniques and methodologies to be used with pupils in the didactic approach, both in class and in extracurricular activities, and they will strenghten their know-how for future projects and activities at school. The initiatives envisaged in this project will become part of the Institutes' curriculum and educational offer, therefore benefits on pupils' learning will be long term, even after the end of the project."