Reflective Journal

20072009

Reflective Journal of Partnership

[Πληκτρολογήστε το όνομα του συντάκτη]

2007-2009

Introduction In what follows we have gathered samples of the ideas and thoughts that were expressed through our students who were actively involved in the project activities during 2007-2009. On the one side we believe that this reflective journal is a way of evaluation while on the other side we are certain that is a way of improvement of a teacher or a group of teachers who are participating in Comenius programme. Additionally, we reckon

that

this

diary

can

enforce

other

educational

organization to get involved in such LLP programs since students’ will of participation is accompanied with excitement of cooperation. Enjoy and reflect!

Samples of Cypriot students’ reflections:

I had many experiences from Comenius programme. Last year I remember eating breakfast at school for three days. This year my class have cooked meatballs and meat in wine (afelia). After some days, my teacher have told us to prepare a poster and some teaching games for the programme, while he had also said that he would choose some of them to take them with him in Isernia meeting. He provided us many flags of European countries. This way we were informed about the other countries. I would like to participate in this programme next year as well! Eleni Fouli (D2) I have positive experiences through Comenius programme. I have learned many things about each partner country, and I mean Italy, Bulgaria, Slovakia and Romania. We have prepared posters which are related to the partnership and cooperation or people. We have also cooked meatballs and afelia (cypus recipe) under the title “Shall we eat all together”. Moreover, we have created teaching games and we have included flags and sightseeing of each partner country, such as Pisa Tower, Colosseum… I would like to continue participating in this programme. Ioanna Engomiti (D2) What I like the most from Comenius is the time we cooked Cypriot recipes like afelia and pilaf… it’s so nice to cook, we also ate salad and bread. We also like the time we had exchanged

greeting

cards

with

children

from

partner

countries. We like a lot getting involved in those experiences through Comenius programme because despite the fact that we

have learned the significance of a healthy breakfast, we also got informed about the habits and food of other countries. Angela Koulla – Charalambos Charalambous – Elena Kiriakou (D2) I remember last year that we cooperated in an activity that was titled “shall we eat breakfast all together”. I also like that we were connecting to the internet, to our webpage, and were watching tasty foods we had being prepared. We also created some teaching games using questions and answers from all partner countries. I have even learned some words in Bulgarian language such as dobre utro, blagotarya. Rafaella Gouaniva (D2) I had collected many experiences from Comenius. This year we have done the most of the activities. I remember that we have prepared posters, teaching games, we cooked twice. Once we have cooked afelia and the second time we have cooked meatballs. Both are local traditional recipes. I also remember that last year we were eating breakfast for three days at school. I will never forget such nice experiences and I will have them as sweet memories in my mind. These two years I participated in Comenius I felt great…I would like to join Comenius next year as well. Loucas Liggi (D2) My school participated for the last three years in Comenius programme so as my class did. I have learned many things through this programme, such as flags of countries, traditional cooking recipes, etc. I also have learned that cooking recipes from partner countries haven’t

got much difference between them. We have some differences since we add or not add some ingredients that are not familiar to us. What I remember as a nice memory from Comenius is when we cooked other countries’ cookies for Christmas and the cooking book of traditional recipes we have edited along with our teachers. I would like to have the chance to participate in a project meeting with this programme one day! Andri Pitsillidi (Ε1) For the last three years my class participates in Comenius programme. Through this programme we had the chance to create and involve in exciting things. We had the luck to visit Chirokitia Neolithic Settlement, to get informed about habits of other European countries, to have lunch and breakfast all schoolmates together and to cook at the same time with students from Romania and Slovakia using Internet camera. We surely liked participating in Comenius and we would like to visit another partner country one day in order to meet children from abroad with different language, habits and ideas…its so nice to make new friends from Europe. Giorgos Koushiapas, Aristos Aristidou, Rafaella Panagidi (Ε1) We had great experiences through Comenius. We loved when we cooked pilaf, biscuits and flaounes (traditional Easter Cheese pies). We had even visited a local traditional restaurant where

we

watched how koupepia

are

being prepared…

Whenever we were cooking we were happy and excited. We did a lots of things, we create teaching games and some crafts for the programme. We loved that we exchanged emails with the children from partner countries… we think that we have now

new friends… we would love to visit Italy for the project meeting to meet them in person. Anthi Kostandinou, Kiriaki Petrou (Ε1) I liked when we had cooked pilaf, while I was excited when I had visited one of the local restaurants of our village to see how they cooked traditional recipes. I also remember when we made teaching games and several crafts which were related to the programme. We surely enjoyed the participation in the programme and we will always remember. I would like to be lucky and travel one day abroad in partner schools. Emiliana Sofokleous (E1) What to remember from all the things we have done within the Comenius? We feel lucky that we had the opportunity to travel in Chirokitia (Neolithic Settlement), visit and study in Public Library, visit a traditional tavern and see how traditional recipes, such as meatballs in wine leaves (koupepia), are prepared…and additionally we liked when we had the chance to cook by ourselves pilaf and cookies.και να μαγειρέψουμε όλοι οι συμμαθητές μας πουργούρι και μπισκότα. We mostly liked the three days breakfast and the teaching games with pictures and questions regarding partner countries that we have prepared along with our students. Antonis Pattichis, Paulos Irakleous (Ε1) Whenever I hear the word Bulgaria I smile. It was an experience that I will never forget in my life. It was an awesome experience. (…) To be honest I didn’t know many

things about Bulgaria. In May (2008) I went there with my three schoolmates and I was informed about many things regarding the specific country such as history, civilization and Varna. We stayed in a very good hotel and I was staying in the same room with another schoolmate with which we had good time together. We liked the local food of Bulgaria. I noticed that in restaurants they serve at first the salad which is called sopsca and then the main dish which is usually meat, like spicy meatball, but very tasty. We made many new friends from all partner countries at school we had visited. The school looks different than ours. Regarding their language I noticed that its different and weird, but we learned some words. Finally, Bulgaria is a very interesting country even though we didn’t know much about it. There are museums with greek items and history, churches and monasteries. I liked a lot all those things. I will never forget all those places I had visited and all those friends I made.(…) I had great impressions during this trip. I had never had such an experience and I felt sorry that I left from this nice country. I wish I could have a similar experience in the future!!! Christina Dionisiou (Sixth Grade) This year I was lucky enough because I participated in the sixth meeting of Comenius in Isernia Italy (May 2009). We had travelled two students and three teachers. After a long time trip we had arrived to the lovely hosted family. At the beginning I felt a little anxious but after some minutes I felt that this staying would be much warm and maybe like home, (…). At the second day we had visited school and had entered classrooms. I was l feeling weird because I could understand

anything but in a while after I noticed how much friendly ere the other students, I felt cozy enough. We participated in an English language lesson and in Art lesson.(…) Next day we visited Benevento where we admired the Traians Entrance to Rome and the nice city of Benevento. After our small tour we had a lunch at a local park. (…) At Wednesday our friends Italians from Miranda elementary school prepared for us a presentation with italian music, while they offered us a unique Italian lunch at their school. I was impressed with their hospitality, smiling faces and friendly mood. Together at the afternoon we went to a mountain where we flew some kites. Next day we travelled all together to Pompeii to see the exciting ancient town. I still cannot believe what I had seen and how lucky I was to be there! At Friday we followed some more lessons at school while at the evening we had the opportunity to walk through the shops of Isernia. At night Italians gave a party to a restaurant for all of us from other countries where we ate and danced and had great, great time!. From the early morning of the next day we had said goodbye to our hosted family and all the other children and we took the train to return back to Rome. There we made the tour of the City with touristic Bus. We passed by and were astonished by Colosseum, Vatican City, Fontana di Trevi and Piaza di Spagna. In general, I had great time in this Comenius meeting. I will never forget specific faces such as the parents and children who gave us host, some Italian teachers, some new friends we made from other countries , the nice and tasty food of Italy and the sightseeing of course. I wish I would have

once more the same opportunity to participate in such a meeting of Comenius. Stefanos Kiriakou E2

Samples of Slovakian students’ reflections: I’m glad I could participate in the project, because I didn’t only obtain more information about Paleolithic

period of

Slovakia and our partner‘s countries, but through it I made the international friendship with Italian pupils. I personally saw how children live in foreign country what their school looks like, which subjects they have to study, how they spend their free time. I had the chance the first time in my life to travel by plane. I have unforgettable memories of time I spend in Italy. Zuzana, 7A I think, that taking part in this project was very positive thing for me .I had a big opportunity to improve my English. I wrote e-mails, I read articles about Prehistoric people and their life in this period, I translated recipes of traditional meals. The most important things was I could speak English to foreign people in project meeting in Italy where I understood how important It is studying of foreign languages. Andrej, 7A I will never forget our partner’s visit from Italy in December 2007. I met very interesting children.

I spent with them a lot of time. We were together at our school in the morning and after our lessons in the afternoon. Thanks English we could speak about everything. We compared their daily life to Slovak children’s life. They taught us some words in Italian language.

We

became so good friends that I want to go for holiday to Italy. I didn’t expect that working in this international project will bring me such a nice friendship. Kristína, 8A I like cooking too much. It’s my hobby and it was pleasure for me to help with this part of the project I help my mum very often but international cooking through the web- camera was much more interesting. We were not only preparing deferent international meal but we could see what our friends are cooking at the same time. We were speaking to each other and explaining our recipes. Ladislav, 5C We are small -9 years old-we couldn’t do a lot of activities because we don’t speak English well but our class helped colour the pictures for making prehistoric puzzles. Katarína & Matúš, 4A A lot of people ask me if the project was important for me and why. My answer is- yes. I had never had opportunity to represent our school abroad. I brought from Varna experience. Five days I lived in Bulgarian family, I tried Bulgarian meal, saw their

customs

and

attended

primary

school

in

Varna.

Organizers prepared for us very nice program. The most

interesting things we visited were archaeological place-Aladzha Rock and Paleolithic museum where we were trying to make prehistoric tools and playing old games. I wish to do a similar project in the future. Mišo, 7A What were we doing during the three years in Comenius project with the name “Shall we all eat together?“ A lot ofthings. It is difficult to remember all of them. We were obtaining information about live in the Stone Age through internet,

books

from

library,

and

brochures

from

Archaeological museum. We were gathering traditional recipes of all partners and translating them to Slovak language. We were writing stories from Stone Age every day live and making tools of this period. I remember issuing of special additional of newspaper of the project or updating information on the notice board. I can’t forget on line communication with partners and watching their presentations. I can tell now – we did a lot so we learnt a lot. Tomáš, 8A Everybody of this school knows about Comenius project but I was lucky on the 12-th May 2008 I had the possibility to travel to Varna – Bulgarian town. After our exciting journey we met Bulgarian friends and started their live style. It was easier than in Slovakia because I wasn’t tested at school but on the other side I lived in the foreign country without my family. I have very good memories of that time. I liked visiting Archaeological museum and picnic at Golden Sands too much.

Nikola, 7A Who love cooking that liked Comenius. Our team of young cooks had the chance of preparing traditional meal of project partner and Slovak traditional meal. We tried to cook Romanian pancakes with cottage cheese, Cypriot New year’s cake with coins inside, Bulgarian walnut kernels in the Thracian style and Slovak meal typical for Easter – hrudka. Everything was very good and tasty. After studying of our partners’eating habits we understand that cooking is an interesting part of the national culture. Aďo, 9D I remember one very interesting activity on March 2008. We were in the nature and pretended food preparation in the Stone Age. We used stones, pieces of woods, seeds and grass. We discovered that this plain food should be healthy nutrition nowadays too. I liked the trip to Spišský castle as well. I could see there the first dishes for preparation meal and a part of Slovak cuisine history. In this project we compared preparation food of five different countries.(Bulgaria, Cyprus , Romania, Italy and Slovakia) Barbora , 7A

Samples of Bulgarian students’ reflections:

I had an exciting experience these two years with all project activities. A few students of our class cooked a winter soup last Christmas. It was the first time I tried to cook. It was the first time I practiced my English with foreigners, because we cooked online and we could see how our partners from Slovakia and Italy cooked at the same time. Maria Nikolova - 5th grade I like History, it`s my favourite subject so it was fun for me to take part in our project research. Our main aim was to learn about Nealithic people – How did they live and what did they eat? We spent a lot of time at the Education museum in Varna. It was very interesting there and we had the opportunity to get fire as the ancient people did that.We tried to make clay dishes and they looked like as the museum exhibits. Martin Adamov - 6th grade We are from 5th grade and we are participants in Comenius project “Shall we eat all together?”. Now we are “the experts” of our partners` cuisines. First we learned about the countries, their flags, traditions, languages. After that we translated and cooked some of the partners` recipes and finally we did our presentation. All of our parents and friends were invited to taste and to choose the most delicious dish. It was a great party! We hope we will have the chance someday to travel and to visit some of these countries. The students from the 5th grade I`m lucky! The Comenius project gave me the chance to meet students from other countries and to go abroad. A year ago,

when the project meeting was in our town, I was a host. Two Italian students were living together with my family. It was a great fun and the opportunity to learn a bit Italian. I could practice my English during 3 years we have been working in the project. I`ve translated a part of the materials in English and the prize for me was to visit our partner`s school in Isernia, Italy. Veselin Trakiyski – 6th grade I love drawing. I`m interested in handmade things and I enjoyed myself in many of the project activities. We made an exhibition “Paleolith in colors” and the best pictures we used to prepare puzzles as a final product. I`m very proud with the book “Bulgarian traditional recipes”. We collected the most tipical recipes and made illustrations for each of them. Nikolina Keranova – 7th grade Oh, yes! We have already eaten together and played together and laughed together. We spent 5 days together with a few students from Cyprus, Romania, Italy and Slovakia. The project meeting in Varna was cool! We were all the time together and weren`t any difficulties in communication. The differences were less than the similarities. Kamen Yanev – 7th grade Now I`ve got many more pen friends. I had the opportunity to visit Italy and to be a participant in the last Comenius meeting in Isernia. It was a very exciting experience. It was interesting to see the school of our partners, to live with their families and even to be tested by their math teacher 

Ivaila Peeva - 7th grade My mother is a chef. She likes her job and she is very good at it. It was pleasure for her to help us with gathering the recipes and learning about the ancient Turkish cuisine and what its influence to Bulgarian cuisine was. We organized a party in our class where my mum told us interesting stories and showed how to make a traditional Turkish sweet “baklava”. Moazes Mutafchieva – 7th grade I remember one of the first Comenius activities I took part in. Some girls from our class colored Easter eggs. We did that as our grandmothers and great-grandmothers had done many years ago. We got colors from different plants and natural materials. The eggs became colorful and beautiful and we learned more about Bulgarian traditions and practices. Iveta Hristova – 7th grade The spices are important for each meal, I`ve know that. Since we visited and cooked in a traditional Bulgarian restaurant, I have known that the spices are very, very important and they fix the taste. The cook showed us how and what do use and we prepared three meals with the same ingredients but different spices. Silvia Todorova – 5th grade

Samples of Italian students’ reflections:

This experience was for me important because it improved my English through cultural exchange and contacts with other teaching methods. Each encounter has been a moment of celebration which has enriched ourselves, becoming more aware of the value of our diversity. I hope to join other European projects!!! Manocchio Marco III D The day spent in Miranda was wonderful. We ate at the school canteen. Then we went to the mountains to admire the flight of the kites. In the evening we were all tired but happy for our “European day”. Papa Riccardo I A In Isernia my family hosted 2 students from Cyprus. I remembered when they arrived at the station. It was very touching. I liked them from the first time. They were a bit shy but mainly tired. Everything passed when they saw my dog. Now I have 2 new friends in Larnaca. Rondinella Stefano I B The Comenius project has been an opportunity to visit archaeological sites, cook European recipes, know the habits of other nations and make new friends. Now I have a good reason for travelling in Europe! Di Luozzo Giovanni III C

It has been very funny to know the traditional dishes of our partners and we appreciated their tastiness. D’Uva Martina II A This was the last year of the project. Together with the partners we visited Pompei, Caserta, walked in the historical part of our city and many other things more: Thank you Comenius! Di Perno Martina I B I remember with nostalgia my visit to the school of Kosice. It was the beginning of December and our European friends were preparing Christmas activities. We too prepared decorations for the Christmas tree, sang songs, played, and cooked a traditional Slovakian recipe. Rossi Camilla III B I have joined the Comenius project from the first year. I have travelled in Slovakia e Romania; I am so enthusiastic for this experience because I have had the change to know new friends. We still e-mail each other. Di Pilla Pasqualino II C I still remember the day when we prepared the “struffoli” in our school. It is a typical Carnival recipe. We were all excited because our European friends could see us through a web cam. The cooking on-line activity was the best Comenius activity. Nobile Federica III C

I am part of the school magazine “ La redazione”. This year I have been working more than usual writing articles for the Comenius project. Together with the teacher we chose the photos, the texts, we cut, we glued, we tore pieces of paper! Ciao Federica III D

Samples of Romanian students’ reflections: This project was an unforgettable experience for me. I managed to make friends from other countries, and this, was something I could never have imagined if it wasn’t for the project. Besides this I got some skills of using the computer for educational purposes: getting together the materials we needed in developing the project. Dragota Alin (VI A) I liked a lot the team work and not just a national team work, but an international one. Dragota Alexandru (VI A) Besides the exciting activities we participated in with all the colleagues from the project team, I managed to see what I wished for the most: the sea, for the first time in my life. Muntean Andrada (V B)

The project meant for me something very beautiful. I couldn’t wait for the week day (Thursday) in which the project team met at school. Padurean Melissa (VI C) I was a little sad after the logo I drew for the project wasn’t selected to represent the project these three years, but I managed to go over that moment thanks to the diverse and very fulfilling activities we developed with our partners. I loved the historical part of the project – because it’s my favorite subject of all. Ghiurutan Marius (VIII B) In my opinion, the best activities we developed were the ones in which we cooked, because I love cooking and I also love to taste everything I make. I even found out which are the culinary traditions of the other partners. It was the most interesting thing. Cozac Bogdan (VIII B) I liked it very much when we cooked, too. And then we tasted the products of our activity. Ostafie Nicoleta (VIII B) For me the project was a good opportunity to find out about the history, culture and civilization of the other partners, right there on the spot. Bogdan Alexandra (VI A)

I hope we will take part in this kind of experiences and projects because it was a captivating experience and I made my interest for knowing things, and foreign languages better, grow bigger and bigger. Siklodi Ecaterina (VI A) At the end of three years of work in teams I can say that the team work beats anytime working individually, we managed to developed many captivating activities and they got our interest. Agache Roxana (VIII B)