Comenius
Let's discover hidden talents
COMENIUS "Let's discover hidden talents"
The sixth meeting in Greece - Thessaloniki
1th – 7th June 2015
Marcelina
Martyna
The 6th meeting of the project “Let’s discover hidden talents" in Greece
On the first week of June the project coordinator DainaKarkauskiene, Supply Division DanguoleDudziene, senior English teacher Inga Marciulaitiene, primary school teacher supervisor Rasa Urbanaviciene, primary school teacher supervisor JolitaSvirinaviciene school students ZydruneCesonyte, JustinasKarkauskas, VincentasZienka and DomanteKazlauskaite were welcomed and greeted warmly by Palaiokastro Thessaloniki city’s students and teachers. The students were gladly met by Greek families, who took care of our students as their own children. They organised joint children's parties, attended the famous places of the district together during the free time of the project.
We were greeted by beautiful nature, a lot of historic sights and warm climateof the country. Greece is one of the oldest of European civilization, its extremely rich history and culture is calculated in thousands of years. We are glad having the opportunity to touch to the country's history, customs and traditions. During the project wevisited historic Greek city of Aigai, where is a mausoleum grave of the great military leader Alexander the Great's father, King Philip II. In The Royal tombs museum, which is under banked mound,there is exhibited about 3,000 year – old historicalfinds of gold, metal, glass, marble and wood. Thessaloniki is the second largest city in Greece, which was founded about 315 years B.C. We visited an ancient temple there. There are lots of temples and buildings’ ruins.
We enjoyed the time together with Greek, Turkish, Spanish and Polish teams. Our students felt very unselfconscious,because they met their old friends whom they met in previous meetings or communicating online and found a lot of new friends.It was delighting that the students communicated in English well and had a very good opportunity to improve it.
We liked the hospitable Greek Primary School with its small cosy cabins with a colourful yard. The school community gave uswarm memories, sincere and warm interpersonal relationships, care and hospitality. They introduced their customs and traditions, showed us a theatrical history of the town of Thessaloniki, which was prepared by the Greek pupils and teachers. We entertained together with ethnic Greek folk song and dance ensembles and tasted traditional Greek dishes prepared by the students’ parents. We had an opportunity to demonstrate our creative abilities producing traditional Greek workshops - mosaics. A lot of great emotion and excitement students felt playing Lithuanian, Spanish, Polish, Greek and Turkish sportsandnational gamestogether.
We spent one funny day at Yuppi camp in Halkidiki. Here children played sports games, dancedvarious dances. The teachers had the opportunity to admire the Aegean Sea with a wonderful beach.
The Project participants were warmly accepted atPalaiokastro Town Hall. Here we saw an interactive tour of the city and shared the experience of Comenius projects.
During the project students and teachers discussed about the two-year achievements of the project work and meetings moments.
Later there was time for the long goodbyes, hugs and tears, becausechildrenfound good friends there. However, now this friendship continues in an interactive space.
Impressions from the trip to Greece
As part of the Comenius program on 1-8 June 2015. MarzennaUrbaniak–a headmistress, Wanda Wisniewska - the main project coordinator, AgnieszkaKacza- a school coordinator of the project and students: MartynaWybraniec and MarcelinaJurczuk, took part in the meeting in Greece in Palaikastro, in the suburb of Thessaloniki. It was a visit, summarizing two years of working together.Just as during previous trips, Greece also welcomed us very warmly and heartily. Families looked after the children very carefully throughout their stay in Greece. The school, where we arrived, was small, but very charming, consisting of a few small single-storey buildings. It was beautifully prepared for a meeting with partners from Lithuania, Turkey, Spain and Poland.
Programme of the meeting was very attractive. At school we had the opportunity to participate in a specially prepared art classes, where we made pictures by gluing pieces of wood on the card and a piece of plywood. We had the opportunity to taste the flavour of Greek cuisine, prepared by parents and teachers. We got to know Greek culture and traditions, we participated in learning Greek dance. Children had the opportunity to play together all the games and sports games that were one of the tasks of the project.
During the visit, we took part in a meeting with the mayor of the village of Palaiokastro in the town hall, and then we visited the Dinosaur Park. The Dinosaur Park is located in the area Oraiokastro. We had the opportunity to see replicas of fossils and designed thousands of years. It is the largest dinosaur exhibition in Europe of the real size exhibits.
We took a trip to Chalkidiki on Yuppi Camp, where we had the opportunity to spend time together playing, singing and dancing all day long. Yuppi camp is a modern summer camp that encourages and develops the physical, mental and emotional skills of the children by deploying well planned activities, games and creative actions which are delivered by well trained and experienced staff in a magnificent environment.
We visited a very interesting archaeological site in Vergina / ancient name of Aigai /. Aigai was the first ancient capital of the Kingdom of Macedonia. Here it was discovered the burial place of Macedonian kings, including the tomb of Philip II, father of Alexander the Great. It is also in this village was born Alexander the Great. It was a genuine meeting with the history of ancient Greece. The royal tombs were discovered in 1977-8 by archaeologist ManolisAndronikos.We also visited Thessaloniki. Thessaloniki is the second largest city of Greece, which received the name of the wife of the king of the Macedonians, the sister of Alexander the Great and it was the birthplace of St. Cyril and Methodius. We walked the beautiful streets of the city, we saw a symbol of Thessaloniki - the White Tower, a monument to Alexander the Great, we sailed by ship along the coast, we saw the ancient excavations in the city centre. We have seen that it is a city that never sleeps, life goes on here intensively at day and night.
We were pleasantly surprised extraordinary music, traditional dances, delicious food, as well as their openness and hospitality. The last supper brought a surprise, because it turned out that it was the Greek evening combined with traditional dancing and singing. We could see a beautiful performance with traditional dances presented by dancers from Greece. In this last Comenius evening participated residents of Palaiokastro, students and teachers with their families. It was a real Greek treat. The inscription on the T-shirts "Our talent is hospitality", which were given to each Comenius teams, fully reflects these words.
Stay in Greece was an exceptional adventure and a wonderful experience that will forever remain in our memories. This trip was extremely fruitful in new friendships, both among children and teachers.
We are proud that we were able to learn so much during these two years, when we had the pleasure to realize the project. We are glad that we had the opportunity to discover our talents, increase our knowledge about participating countries, to know their culture and traditions,to learn tolerance, multiculturalism and respect for others.
Thanks to the great commitment of all the partners we could execute so many tasks.
MEETING IN THESSALONIKI, GREECE
1st-7th June 2015
From 1st to 7th June 2015, we held the 6th Meeting of our Comenius project Let's discover hidden talents in Thessaloniki. There, our students and teachers enjoyed a programme full of educational activities prepared for all of us!
Again, we experienced a great atmosphere thanks to our wonderful, hospitable and very committed host teachers, families and students!
Throughout the week we were received by Palaiokastro authorities, astonished by Aigai (The Royal Capital of Macedon), visited the city of Thessaloniki, enjoyed Halkidiki camp and, specially, we felt at home thanks to our Greek friends hospitality and kindness.
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The list of things to accomplish on our agenda was long: working on our final report and closing program activities, discussing on the performed activities, workshops, parents’ association party and discovering Greek culture a little bit more.
Our students had a lot of fun working on the vocabulary contest, playing our partner’s traditional games, taking part in different workshops and, what is also important, making new friends along the way. It was an unforgettable meeting!
Our students’ quotes are the best testimony of this wonderful experience:
EVICK ‘We have played different Comenius sports all together. I enjoyed it a lot!’
YASSIN ‘I loved the school festival at the Greek school. Can I travel next year again?’
ANGELA ‘Everybody took care us a lot. It’s been a wonderful experience!’
GARANCE: ‘We have met a lot of different boys and girls. It was cool!’
And our project has come to an end... This was our sixth and last meeting. We (teachers and students) have all really enjoyed a lot our visits to all Comenius countries and have received a warm and friendly welcome from everyone (school teachers and host families) at the meetings who ensured we had a nice stay. Thanks to everyone involved, you made possible an exciting project which helped us explore the true meaning of this programme: breaking boundaries, cooperation and friendship. It’s been a pleasure working with you!
Thank you to all of you for such a
great meeting once again!
IMPRESSIONS OF TURKISH TEAM AFTER GREEK MEETING
In the first week of June the sixth and the last meeting of our Project washeld in Thessaloniki. We were the largest group of the team with 8 students and 6 teachers. First of all we would like to thank Irene for her kindness toour wishes before the meeting
As a neigh bour country we found many similarities between Turkis hand Greek culture, music, dances and food. It was a great feeling to dance to the same music while singing in two different languages.
We were impressed by the history of Greece, the historic Greek city Aigai was amazing. We had a chance to see the royal tombs museum with spectacular ruins and an ancient temple there.
We enjoyed in Halkidiki camp, the children played games and had a great time altogether.
Students also played different traditional games of partner countries, joined vocabulary competition, took part in different workshops. They experienced new things with their new friends. Allkidscouldunderstandeachother in a common language ‘language of friendship’. They had unforgetable moments in Greece.
We want to thank host parents for taking good care of our students. They made our children feel asiftheirown children. They had a great time together. Whenwe hadtoleave on thelastday of thetrip, our children cried not to go back home.
Besidesallthisbeauty, therewas aspecial time forTurkishteam. AllTurkishpeoplehave a dream of visitingthehousewhere Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, thefounder of TurkishRepublic. Thankstothistripwe had thechancetovisitAtatürk’shouse in Thessaloniki.
Finally, weturnedbackhomewith a wonderfulexperiencethatwillremain in ourmemories.
Wearegladto be in such a useful Project. Welearnt a lotfromoursimilaritiesanddifferences. We had foreverfriendships, wemadeculturalbridges, wediscoveredourtalents in manydifferentareas. During the set woyearswetouched many children’s lives. Not only for children this project alsotaughtmanythingstoeach of us.
We would like to thank to all the partners who contributed to this project.
