Visibility of eTwinning Projects Group July 2018 Newsletter------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
THINK- Developing thinking skills through literature by Irena Raykova, Rangel Pantaleev, Cira Serio, Loredana Ursini, Francesca Borrelli, Renata Večerková and Barbara Tatol mother language, social skills, digital skills, a sense of initiative and entrepreneurship, empathy and ability to focus, remembering, gathering and connecting the pieces of information.
Scientific research has proved that our brain transmits our thoughts via brain waves. These brain waves are so powerful, that they can not only change the chemical reaction within our body, but also transform the world around us. Through our thoughts we attract people and situations in our life. We can say that our thoughts create our world and that through thinking we can change our life. That is why our team of enthusiastic teachers( Irena Raykova, Cira Serio, Francesca Borelli, Loredana Ursini, Renata Večerková, Barbara Total and Rangel Pantaleev) decided to create a project and to teach our children to think, to persevere, and to have positive attitude towards everything that happens in their lives. We have been working as a team for four years and we have already had
many successful eTwinning projects such as“ A treasure chest of wisdom”,“ Just like me” and“ Inside the rainbow”. eTwinning has a great impact not only on our professional development, but also on our personal life- from being project partners we became true friends that can rely on each other. This true friendship has spread out among our students, given them opportunity to learn, grow and play together with their eTwinning friends in the most modern and collaborative classroom- TwinSpace.
Our new project“ Think” aimed to develop thinking skills through literature and storytelling. All project activities were planned to be done collaboratively and to develop different types of thinking: concrete, creative, analytical, critical, abstract, logical, social, thinking outside of the box, problem solving, and positive thinking. Children learnt about the famous fairytale writer Hans Christian Andersen: his life and his work. They changed the well-known story“ The Little Match Girl” from the beginning to its end. Children learnt that although we struggle with trouble during our life, we can overcome them, change the life-line applying different types of thinking and doing. They developed decision making skills through Eduard Bono’ s method“ Six thinking hats”. Children understood that thinking must precede our behavior and that we have to observe one situation from different point of view.
Although the main aim of the project was to develop thinking skills, we also developed many 21st century skills such as: communication in
Our project promotes reading, has a focus on cultural heritage, collaborative learning and writing. Among our most interesting project activities are:“ Stay Safe Online” which focused on e-Safety. Students learnt about Cyberbullying, discussed the rules to follow, talked about Copyright and created the Project Netiquette.“ How to make real friends” enables children to get to know each other following step by step guide of true friendship. After introducing themselves, students read about their new eTwinning friends. Moreover, they learnt about their partners’ countries and prepared a Visit card introducing one of them.
Children also sent greetings on holidays and did several tasks in“ Creative challenges before Christmas”. The creative challenges for Christmas were realized with the active participation of the parents of our team and all the activities for the e- Safety Day involved all our families and the students were the promoters of the slogan " Create, connect and share respect " by developing their spirit of initiative that ended up involving all of us in this project that clearly shows how our teams have grown in methodology and good eTwinning practices. Online meetings and chatting with friends from abroad were really popular. Besides that, students could communicate about things they like, e. g. favourite toys or favourite food, in“ Students’ area” and they also commented on other students’ posts. In“ Logo competition” children created logos and voted for the best one- which then became the project logo.
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