Logo Comenius Rivers - the life near the rivers in Europe

Project activities


Meeting minutes 
The life near the rivers in Europe 
Latvia 2/10 2012 

Present; Rosa, Neus, José Carlos, Pedro, Inta, Inara, Eliana, Moira, Otto, Christer, Andija

1. Welcome: Rosa said welcome to the meeting and to Latvia. 

2. Activities from September 2012 to December 2012. 
September: We continue to make a worksheets with 5 plants and 5 animals from each country. It shall look like this: common Name, picture from internet or a photo, name in Latin, family, type, normal size, what it eats (animal), where it lives, special facts. Write in own language and attach the translation in English. Don’t forget the logo, send the work to every country. Take photos from the work and process. 

October: Take photos of your exhibition and send to the blog. Use all countries flowers and animals. 

November 2012. Boats.
November: Boats. Each school will choose a typical boat of their country. Pupils will identify and learn about the boat. Then children will make a power point or do a short movie in what program you prefer, max 2 minutes presentations. Do the process in the own language and send the presentation to the countries in English.
Building boats. Every teacher decides what material to use when building the boats. Pupils create their own boat. Take photos and share to the blog. Do small boats in pairs or groups, make a exhibition.

December: Water cleaning. Cut a bottle in a half, use from bottom, cotton, (sand), small stones, big stones.

3. Activities from January and February 2012 

January: Visit a water treatment plants if it’s possible or see a movie about water treatments. Take photos and share to the blog.

Recycling: Start to recycle at your school or improve your work. Show how important it is to recycle. Rosa will send three different activities to do; it is one story, one fortuneteller and one octopussy. Select what to do, maybee you have something different in the subject, use it and tell the others!

February: Do art exhibition of recycled materials. Do a creative workshop! Take photos to the blog.

3.1 We will visit Portugal from Monday 18th February to Friday 22nd February. 
We decided to stay in a Hotel in Riga, there is also a chance to stay in a home.

4. Evaluation of previous activities:
Book writing
Italy: Started the work in the middle of May.
Sweden: Continued the book in the beginning of June, it took a lot time, but it’s a nice book.
Latvia: Are working with the book right now.
Portugal and Spain are waiting.

When Spain will receive all the chapter of the story will finish it and they will send the complete story to Italy. Italy will do the cover and we will add the activity to project products.

Folklore

Pedro is waiting for the files. Send three different files! One with a dance, one with a song and one with the legend.

Evaluation: Dont forget to evaluate with your students, start with five flowers and five animals. What did you like the most about the activity? How would you improve the activity? Select the best answers and bring them to Portugal.

5. Evaluation of the communication 

The communication works good.

Our E-mail contact works perfect. Everybody answer the mail quickly.

Our Blog is really good, but we want to add a translation possibility. It’s a good improvement for the children in every coutry. And now its works. Please send text file separately from picture files. And if we want a document with a specific format, send Inta an example in PDF to let her see it. We have to send Inta our materials and comments about the blog to: comeniusrivers@gmail.com.

6. Project spreading 
Don’t forget to show the project to parents, newspaper, do a Comenius Corner and so on.

7. New class links

The week after the visit in Latvia we shall send an e-mail and tell how many classes which want to participate in changing letters.

8. Exchange of gifts 

Thank you very much for all nice gifts!!!

9. Any other business

10. Thanks from Rosa

At my computer
Christer Bengtsson
Sweden

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Project plan for the first year

September 2011- Create the blog and the logo of the project
October 2011- exchange the letters of the penpals in each country
November 2011- learning how to save water and energy in our schools
December 2011- Skype meeting to exchange opinions about the project
January 2012- sharing traditional recipes using river products
February 2012- creating recipes book and the caledar
March/ April- gathering information about the river near the school (photos, posters etc.)
May/ June 2012- sharing traditional songs, legends, folk dances, edit a collaborative CD and DVD

Meeting minutes 
The life near the rivers in Europe
Sweden 30/5 2012

Present: Rosa, Cinta, Sofia, Pedro, Lina, Lina, Susana, Eliana, Moira, Fiammetta, Pina, Marita, Otto and Christer, Inta, Ināra.

1. Welcome.

Rosa said welcome to the meeting and to Sweden. She explained the main objectives of the meeting:

- To discuss and plan the activities for the first term of Year 2 (from September 2012 to December 2012).
- To evaluate all the Activities of Year 1.
- To evaluate the communication between partners.
- To evaluate how we do the project diffusion.
- To clarify all our doubts.

Rosa gave out to all the people present in the meeting the list of teachers more involved in the project. Rosa wrote the necessary modifications and she undertook to send the document modified.

2. Activities from September 2012 to December 2012.
September 2012. Flora and Fauna.

We decided to choose 5 plants and 5 animals from each country. We will do a mural of each specie showing a picture from Internet or a photo. Below the photo or picture we will write the common name of the specie, the Latin name, type of animal or plant, normal size, what does it eat (animal), where does it live, special facts.

October 2012. Flora and Fauna Photographs exhibition.

Each school will set up an exhibition of the work made in the previous activity and about the activity process. The exhibition will contain the work of the own country and the work of the other countries.

November 2012. Boats.

Each school will choose a typical boat of their country. They will identify and learn about the boat. Pupils will do a Power Point presentation or another kind of presentation (maximum 2 minutes) including pictures of the boat, description, functions and history.

November 2012. Building Boats.

Every school decides what material to use when building the boats. Pupils create their own boat. Take photos and share to the blog. There will be a boats exhibition in the school.

December 2012. Water cleaning.

To explain our children how a water treatment plant works (theoretical part).

To construct a sewer (purifying) system at school. This system imitates how a water treatment plant works. The steps to build it are:

1. We cut a plastic bottle.

2. Then we put the mouth of the bottle inside the other part.

3. We put layers of different materials: first, cotton wool, then sand, then small stones and finally big stones.

4. We put dirty water and when it passes through the different filters it becomes clean water. Attention: We can’t drink that water.

2.1. Agree dates for trips.


We will visit Latvia from Monday 1st October (flying day) to Friday 5th October. We decided to stay in a Hotel in Riga, there is also a chance to stay in a home. Inta will send information about the acomodation.

3. Evaluation of Year 1 activities.

Saving water

Portugal: High activity. If we teach the kids, they teach their parents.

Latvia: Good work with the children, activity completed.

Sweden: Waterconsumption activity, good result and good work.

Italy: Did a broschure, the children wants to compare the results of waterconsumption next year.

Spain: High motivated children, compared families consumption.

Saving Energy

High activity in all countries. The children learned how to save energy.

Receipebook and calendar

Latvia did a receipesbook and a calendar.

Spain printed the recipes book and calendar before the trip to Sweden.

Italy showed us their fantastic receipebook and a superb calendar.

The other countries shall do the book and the calendar after we have seen Italy’s one.

Poems
Spain: Positive evaluation.

Portugal: So difficult to write and translate it to English.

Sweden: We wrote it directly in English, so the language is poor.

Book written together

Italy has written their chapters, now the book written together is proceeding in Sweden. Latvia continues in september, keep it for 15 days then send it to next country. Swe – Lat – Port – Sp

Traditional songs, legends and folk dances

To record a group of children singing a traditional song, dancing a traditional folk dance and representing a legend. Pedro will send us instructions about how to send him the recordings. The activity ends in september. Pedro will try to do the dvd for the meeting in Latvia. Send small files. Pedro send us how to share the files.

3.1 Evaluation sheet.

At the end of each activity the group of pupils that have done the activity and the teacher that has carried out the activity will answer two evaluation questions:

1. What did you like the most about the activity?

2. How would you improve the activity?

At the next meeting in Latvia we can talk about conclusions. Bring five to ten answers from your pupils.

4. Evaluation of the communication.
Our E-mail contact works perfect. Everybody answer the mails quickly.

No skypemeeting yet, and probably we will not need any Skype meeting because next year we have three meetings in the different countries. So, we will have more opportunities to talk together.

We have used ordinary post and we will continue with that.

Our Blog is really good. Inta is doing a nice job.

Please send text files separetely from picture files. If we want a document with an specific format, send Inta an example in PDF to let her see it.

We have to send Inta our materials and comments about the blog to: comeniusrivers@gmail.com

5. Project spreading

Portugal: Facebook, Works at the walls, news in the newspaper.

Latvia: A special wall, webpage, newspaper.

Sweden: A special wall, news in the newspaper, the community webpage.

Italy: Exhibition at the school, informed the parents.

Spain: Works at walls, main entrance, exhibitions, schoolmagazine, the blog is linked.

6. Exchange of letters

The activity about the exchange of letters was compulsory for Year 1 of the project, not for Year 2. So, we decided to keep this activity in a voluntary way. If some classes want to exchange letters with the other countries they can do it.

7. Exchange of gifts

Thank you very much for all nice gifts!!!

8. Any other business

Dont forget to use the comenius logo and our project logo in all our works!


Christer Bengtsson
Sweden
 Minutes from the meeting in Italy, 26/10/2011

1. Welcome.
Rosa said welcome to our project and to Italy. She told that the aim of the first meeting was to clarify doubts and to continue working. She passed a grid to all the partners to write down the names, the e-mail addresses and the telephones of the teachers more involved in the project.

2. Motivation for the project.
Rosa spoke about the project, the motivation for the project and the project objectives. We shall work with the project with the children and show the results to the other countries. We shall share experiences to each other. Rosa said that in a Comenius Coordinators Training Course in Madrid they told her that we can not change the essence of the activities that we planned in the Application Form, we can only readjust or redefine them.

3. Activities for Year 1.
- BLOG: The blog shall reflect all our activities. Latvia is the responsible. We have to send our material and comments to Inta. comeniusrivers@gmail.com 
- LOGO: We shall vote on Thursday for the best logo.
- PEN PALS: Exchange of letters, Spain – Sweden, Spain – Latvia, Italy – Latvia, Italy – Portugal, Sweden – Portugal. We will exchange letters three times per year (October, February and May). The exchanges will coincide with the trips (unless next February). The younger pupils will exchange a picture and a small presentation of themselves with the other countries (only 1 letter, not three times per year as the eldest pupils). So, the country pairs will be the same. We have to agree the pupils pairs with our pairs countries and we could send the presentation and picture in February together with the eldest pupils letters.
- SAVING WATER AND ENERGY: Three activities were decided:
1. Sweden delivers a list and a prospect of homework where every country can make an account of waterconsumption during two days. We will compare the results between classmates and between countries.
2. We will write a list of activities that we can do in our daily lives to save water and energy in school and at home. We will stick the list in the classrooms and periodically we will revise if we do the actions or not.
3. Put up some notes, for example; switch of the ligth, turn of the computer! (Label different school places).
- SKYPE MEETINGS: Skype meetings when we need to talk about different subjects. No specific date.
- DATES FOR TRIPS:
a. There will be no trip to Bulgaria.
b. Next meeting will be in Sweden arriving Monday 28 of May and leaving Friday 1 of June.
c. October 2012 trip to Latvia.
d. February 2013 trip to Portugal.
e. May 2013 trip to Spain.
- TRADITIONAL RIVER RECIPES AND RECIPES BOOK AND CALENDAR.
Pupils will write recipes in their own language or in English and then we will send a selection of five recipes (in English) to the country responsible to publish the recipes book (Italy). The recipes book will contain a total of 25 recipes (5 per country) and at the end there will be a calendar showing the more suitable month of the year or season to cook the recipe.
- RIVERS AND REGIONS INFORMATION. Two activities were decide:
1. Pupils will write poems in their own language talking about rivers. We will send a selection of our poems to the other countries with the translation in English next to the original poem.
2. Book writing together. One country starts a story involving the rivers and writes one chapter, then the book will travel between our countries. Italy shall start the story, after two weeks they send the story to Sweden – Latvia – Portugal and Spain will finish the story.
- TRADITIONAL SONGS, LEGENDS AND FOLK DANCES. Each country makes a DVD with a traditional region song, a traditional legend and a traditional folk dance. We will send the DVD to Portugal and they will be the responsible to make a collaborative DVD with all the songs, legends and folk dances.
Every class doesn’t have to do every task, you can split the activities between classes.
June 2012 each country has to do their own report to their national department.

4. AGREE AND EVALUATION MODEL FOR THE PROJECT.
When we wrote our Application Form in the Evaluation chapter we put that “Each school will check periodically, formally and informally, if pupils and teachers participate and enjoy the project. During the planning meetings, each school will give a feedback to the other countries about what their pupils and teachers think about the activities done and they will tell the others the ideas and interests of their own schools participants to improve the project results”. So, during each meeting we will evaluate the previous activities and at the end of each year we will pass to some children, parents and teachers an evaluation sheet.
4.1 Evaluation of the first activities; The Italian students are happy to join the project and writing letters and making the logo. The Portugese students have some problems with language, but they like to do the logo. The Swedish pupils enjoyed both writing letters and to do the logo.
The Spanish and the Latvian children are happy to have new friends. They enjoyed to participate in the project and to do the logo.

5. DISTRIBUTION OF TASKS.
- Latvia is responsible for the blog.
- Sweden takes care of the writing of meeting minutes. After the writing, Christer sends a copy to Rosa. Rosa proofread it and after adjustments, everyone gets one copy.
- Italy is responsible for the recipebook.
- Portugal is responsible of the collaborative DVD of traditional songs, legends and folk dances.
- Spain is the coordinator.

6. AGREE A MODEL FOR CERTIFICATES OF ATTENDANCE.
We take the Commenius model. It´s important to hand out a certificate at every trip.

7. COMMUNICATION BETWEEN PARTNERS.
a. E-mail, send an e-mail to every partner, answer in two days, and communicate if you go on a holiday.
b. Skypemeeting, when we need to.
c. The blog
d. Ordinary post and fax.
e. Most important are the meetings.

8. PROJECT SPREADING.
It is important to show everyone what we do in the project. To do difusion of the project we should use:
- The school notice boards.
- To use and show the products received from the other countries in our school daily life.
- To inform about the development of the project in the school magazine.
- To inform and show parents our results during parents meetings, open days or class visits.
- To inform about the project to local or regional education authorities.
- To publish a piece of news and photos in the local newspapers, TV or radio. For example, when the partners visit us.
- To have contact with other schools and show them our project experience.
- To have a Comenius Corner in the school to show our products.
- To have contact with local authorities and invite them to know our project.
- The project Blog.
- Recipes book.
- School exhibitions.

9. LOGO VOTE.
A contribution from Italy won the most votes.

10. EXCHANGE OF LETTERS.
First time we send the letters, then we continue to exchange letter when we meet.

11. EXCHANGE OF GIFTS. Thank you!
12. ANY OTHER BUSINESS.
a. Every country offer four meals and it does not have to be luxuarious.
b. The host country is economic responsibility for the transport, entrances and boattrips during the week.
c. We try not to travel more than four persons from each country.

13. Rosa said thank you!

Christer Bengtsson
Sweden