Kiitos@21stCenturyPreschools Newsletter 1 | Page 4

training improved which will change the way they learn. Brief overview Kiitos@21st Century Preschools is an early second language learning (ESLL) project, which aims to promote a High- quality Early Childhood Education and Care (ECEC), in Portugal and in other European Countries, connecting different pedagogical approaches to support children’s global development, preparing and equipping them for the 21st century challenges. Fifty-seven people will be directly involved in the project. These are highly motivated children, Preschool, English and Music teachers, parents, teacher trainers and researchers. As for the project intellectual outputs we will have: This project focuses on the needs of 2 target groups: children in preschool education, from a local School Cluster in Ponte de Sor, Portugal, and the preschool teachers and specialized teachers (English, Music and Physical Education) and school leaders. Kiitos@21st Century Handbook guidelines Preschools – Development materials and resources for 21st century preschools in English Language Teaching Given the wide range of approaches currently existing across EU, the partnership between 4 higher education organizations, from 4 different countries (Portugal, Poland, Italy and Turkey) will focus on the issue of curricular quality and appropriateness, analyse and learn from Member States good experiences, in order to ensure the positive impact on ECEC. We aim this project to have a deep impact on the educational community in general. We envisage children will be able to communicate in two languages, learn and develop cognitive and non-cognitive skills, develop critical thinking, creativity, problem solving, communication, collaborative work and emotional intelligence. Pre-service teachers will also benefit with it because they will have their initial Development of materials resources for Music Learning Action research Scientific article development and – kiitos@21st Century Preschools approach in Early Childhood Education Program This innovative methodology will be an integrated approach which embraces ESLL (Early Second Language Learning), CLIL, Music Learning and 21st Century Skills in preschool education. And in due course, the results of this project will hopefully influence the educational policy regarding early second language learning in preschool education, and support a changing in policy. 4