Romanian Huge Designer ’’ Suitcase’’-the final dissemination

Hello friends !

We mixed  in this “suitcase”:

* ideas for you ....

* stories …

* some little guidebook…

* only a few good tips to follow ...

* lots of  English to learn  …

* lots of pictures…

and
a huge piece of Creativity and Friendship.

TAKE IT WITH YOU, IT WILL BE USEFUL!

WARNING!

This “suitcase” with English is primarily for Huge Designers.

 It may be taken at school, on trips in the country, but especially those from abroad. It contains only useful things. If you cannot carry it alone, ask for help from a friend ! It is best used for trips from 2010-2012 (more or less imaginary)… in Turkey, Poland, Bulgaria and...Romania. But you can use it  after … anywhere ... anytime ...is for life, is forever!

This Comenius project (including its photos, videos, blog and site) is authorized for all who are interested in learning something about it (parents, grandparents, sisters and brothers, other relatives, neighbors, all schoolmates and teachers, friends). Exhibition and dissemination is for free and it not be punished by the law!

AND DO NOT FORGET TO LEARN AND DESIGN SOMETHING NEW EVERY DAY!

A two-three years ago, teacher Eda (our friend from Turkey)  said:

„When Gardner placed mind of frames in the pictures of mind, learners believed intelligence was single and fixed, were ready for journeys into this among dimensions with their unique potentials and secret capacities. Our story was written during these journeys into this dimension by today’s small discoverers. Before we begin our projects, we recognized eachother's cultures and lives as a means of communication, by using letters, postcards and e-mails together with partners of our project. And we shared this result which we got from this partnership with our partners by using presentations.

Because we found out interesting things,  we decided to continue our journey with our new passengers by sharing these activities at jounerys which we're going to do to their worlds. „

So…..we were ready to start!

Because we have a new generation and new needs which must be filled in by us, by us being EFFECTIVE TEACHERS, the Romanian Team chose to present our project theme through  musicals at our project meetings, because students are more receptive when they learn by playing and acting. However, teaching is a complex responsibility and many-sided profession demanding a variety of traits and ability. To teach is to “promote learning”. It means that effective classroom management depends in large measure on the teacher’s ability to plan interesting, student centered, multi-activity lessons to promote a high degree of student involvement and participation. As seen in today’s reality, there is a need to seriously ponder at how education, in the broadest word, can be better used to help professionals adjust to change and prepare themselves to meet the challenges of global competition and newest technologies. 

            Musicals  were presented on our traditional joint show on

Ø      Turkey project meeting – inspired by „The Sound of Music”- „ An effective teacher”

Ø      Romanian project meeting- inspired by „The Aristocats” – „Teaching and learning can be fun…”
Ø      Poland project meeting – inspired by „ Mary Poppins ” - „Living your childhood can be fun…”

Students from  6,7,8 grade took part at these musicals: singing, dancing, reciting ,

playing puppets.  

On the project site we presented some dramas as:

Ø      „E-the food additives”- a story about the need to eat healthy

Ø       „The salt in bred”-a traditional Romanian story

Ø      „The meal must go on!”- a story about the Thanskgiving Day meal

The 3rd graders and the 7th graders have played those roles after they have

created lines, have desined  costumes and sets. All was recorded and added

to the project site.

Ø      „The Nightingale legend”-a romanian folk legend

 Ø    „Fram, the polar bear”

were two other dramas played by the 3rd graders in front of the other colleagues and excited relatives,  with easy lines created by them and with colorful costumes made by their moms.

Also for our project meetings, students guided by their teachers prepared presentations about our country, town, school:

 Ø       Our school

Ø      Brasov-city story

Ø      Codlea –my city

Ø      Who we are?

Ø      Stephen the Great

Ø      Portrait of Romania

Ø      A small tour of Romania

Ø      Romania-our country

Ø      Romanian folk costumes and dances

Ø      Wild animals from our country

All are videos designed from children perspective. The movies were presented and applaused at the project meetings and added to the project site.

We have done some activities based on celebrations.Huge Designers is a large group of students from different countries. Through these activities we wanted to show them the way we celebrate Christmas ,Easter and the March Fests: the 1st  March Day,  Women Day and Martyrs Day.

We also celebrated Thanksgiving Day.Throught this activity our students were thought to be thankfull for everything they have.It is not a Romanian fest but we love to learn about other customs.

We designed Zoo models….2nd, 3rd and 4th grade students made the models, some in the school with their class teachers, some on their own and brought to the classroom to present in English. Students performance was recorded and then shown to them as a feedback. The zoo signs and models were made using paper by Origami and Tangram technique, flour, balloons, nuts and peanuts, clay. Some of them were used to made farms or Zoo, some to decorate the classrooms or the halls of the school. Some of them used ICT and presented all their work on the site.

3rd graders celebrate a day devoted to animals, they have brought their pets at school and dressed like favorite pet they designed animals using paper bags and colourful papers. 

Then we designed Street /City models .The first step was to make a big city model with class teacher. Then the model was used by an English teacher in her English classes. Besides some other students made small models on their own, brought them to school and presented in lesson on a relevant topic. Some of the models are still exhibited in the classrooms and teachers can use them to explain several topics or just for decoration.Thousand of pictures were made! It was an interesting topic for all students. 

Next step: design Traffic signs. Students learned that traffic signs or road signs are signs erected at the side of roads to provide information to road users. With traffic volumes increasing over the last eight decades, many countries have adopted pictorial signs or otherwise simplified and standardized their signs to facilitate international travel where language differences would create barriers, and in general to help enhance traffic safety. Such pictorial signs use symbols in place of words and are usually based on international protocols. Such signs were first developed in Europe, and have been adopted by most countries to varying degrees. 2nd graders made traffic signs, lights and zebra crossing with their class teacher. Then they were provided with short traffic dialogues then learned by heart. When they were ready, their short scenes were recorded and shown to them as a feedback. 3rd graders made street models with traffic signs. They illustrated by these their road to school or to home and learned many English words about this topic.7th graders made a movie about Pedestrian safety Rules and Cycling Rules, added to the project site. Cycling is fun. Most children like to hop on their bikes and ride into the woods. But sometimes, they also meet with unexpected accidents while crossing a busy traffic signal or a congested street intersection. Therefore, it is the responsibility of parents to teach safety rules to children before allowing them to use their bicycles.

Because we are real artists, we designed Puppets and muppets. There were made many different varieties of puppets, and they were made of a wide range of materials, depending on their form and intended use. Students create extremely complex puppets or very simple in their construction, depending by age, skills, ideas…. As Oscar Wilde wrote, "There are many advantages in puppets. They never argue. They have no crude views about art. They have no private lives.” But certainly they are very interesting and fun made and played! 
So…..1,2,3 graders made hand or glove puppets controlled by one hand which occupies the interior of the puppet, made it using paper bags, gloves,socks, for „Fram, the polar bear”.3,4 graders made puppets on wood-spoon or using  balloons for „Snow Queen”, „Good girl/bad girl” and „Wizard from Oz”.4th graders made muppets for the musical „Living your childhood can be fun ”, using balloons and papier mache technique. 4th graders made muppets for the musical „Living your childhood can be fun ”, using balloons and papier mache technique.3rd graders made finger puppets for „Aleodor the Emperor”. 3rd graders made shadow puppets - a cut-out figure held between a source of light and a translucent screen.3rd grade students wrote funny short dialogues and staged them using paper puppets. The scenes were recorded many times till the sentences were correct! It was difficult but very interesting and exciting! 3,4 graders designed marionettes or "string puppets"- suspended and controlled by a number of strings attached to the head, back, hands (to control the arms) and just above the knee (to control the legs). Students made these marionettes for a drama -”Nightingale legend” -using  woolen yarn, for „Fruits stories” using flour and clay and for the musical presented in Poland, using pappier- mache technique, balloons and colorful paper.

Next step was to designed masks. A mask is an article normally worn on the face, typically for protection, disguise, performance or entertainment. Masks have been used since antiquity for both ceremonial and practical purposes. We used these for carnival and for other school performances. 2,3,4 graders made animal masks using paper, cardboard, canvas, colorful pencils, scissors, glue, stick, rope, a lot of creativity and they had fun! Of course, they used English too ! Very nice performances were presented as „Fram and Rajah-Circus day”, „Nightingale legend” and some of the masks were presented on the site, using ICT.

It is a tradition of our school community to greet the school day every spring. This year 3rd graders made this in a foreign language too. This time we celebrated this joyous season dressed up so springfully....making flowers costumes from recycled materials and designed Time flowers-flower mind-maps using colourful paper, with different topics as: Irregular verbes in English, English Past Tense, Save the nature!, How to be effective in school….

5,6,7 graders made Flashcards- a set of cards bearing information, as words or numbers, on either or both sides, used in classroom drills or in private study. One writes a question on a card and an answer overleaf. Flashcards have vocabulary, historical dates, crafts , clothes and other subjects  that can be learned via a question and answer format. Students used flashcards to  widely used as a learning drill to aid memorization by way of spaced repetition.

We wrote and received many interesting and funny letters. It was an exchange part of our project. Polish, Turkish and Romanian students exchanged letters and little projects on their culture and surroundings. The 2,3 graders exhibited the works received from their Poland peers and the 5,6,7 graders the letters from their Turkish peers and presented them during a Comenius Week in our School. 

All the  participants on the first project meeting in Turkey, students and teachers , made an e-magazine about their experiences there, named „Kapadokya moments”, and Turkish students translate this for their school. After the project meetings on Poland and Bulgarie, Romanian team made e-magazines too, „Gdansk moment” and „Schumen moment”, uploaded on our site.

Other e-magazines are „Christmas time”, „Who we are-amazing nature and history”, „Anime silhouettes”,”My favourites characters-Harry Potter”, „My hobbies” ,„Our values”, „Our partners”, „Comic book”, „Traditional Romanian recipes”, „Little poems”, „Environmental knowledge-home hygiene”, „Romania from ancestor until today –a little history lesson”, „Our partners”. Some e-magazines are team work , some were made by students themselves. The topics were chosed by students depending on their interests and hobbies. All these e-magazines were added on project site and you are welcome to browse them!

Some students made brochures with various topics as eco-problems or presentation of the school or town, using ICT , MSPublisher for example.

Another exchange part was about magazines.

The sixth graders made magazines devoted to  topics as  music, fashion, sports. They sent their works to their peer and received Turkish projects. Turkish magazine were very interesting!

3rd grade students learned about clothes hanging their favourites pieces on the classroom. They explained in English why and have been introduced to their classmates favourites clothes. Then they have designed and coloured different clothes on worksheets and named all the clothes found there.

7,8 graders made a fashion parade. They learned that is very difficult to be a model and to presente in English fabulos clothes.

After that, 3rd graders made their luggage, ready to go! They have chose a place to go, they looked for information about that country as continent, capital, interesting towns from there, what we could visit in that place, how is the weather at different times of year. So…..with all these in the „English suitcase”, students travelled around the world, learning about seasons and suitable clothing, how to prepare a suitcase for travel , what is a „must have”  when they are  tourists, what places they must visit in a lifetime and how to behave in different places, depending on the culture and local customs. In front of the class simple sentences related to this topic were spoken and written and we all were excited about the trip!

             When Romania was the project host meeting, there have been two interactive English lessons . One of them was about animals, with 6th grade students  and it content interactive teaching-learning methods as role play and puppet theater. 3rd graders celebrated the PET DAY, have brouhgt their pets at school or have been dressed as favourite animal, they spoke in English and had a lot of fun! 

The other lesson had a complex topic, our common values, and was more an interactive workshop, because students and teachers have worked together: presentation of the partners customs, stories, puzzles, crosswords, songs…..

A few students decide to compose poems, dialogues and sketches or to design crosswords and it was a huge surprise for them when their results were outstanding and apreciated by peers and teachers.

Some of students wrote stories, some illustrated these by drawings. It was difficult but interesting and funny to discover that we can be poets  or comic-writers.... real authors !

Because one of our project goal is to improve the ICT skills, students learned to design web pages. Colourful, with many interesting topics, these webpages made in the first place as word format, show to the other interests, hobbies, skills, creativity.

Then students have improved their work skills in cyberspace and created personal blogs where they posted impressions about various topics. They learned how to design a blog, how to use all functions and tools of a blog, how should communicate with other in this way.

The Romanian team designed a project blog and a project website in English and Romanian too.These were created in order to fulfill another project requirement, namely creating website. Not only is it to present project's output but also to encourage students to create their own websites . The project blog is another chance for the project team to express themselves. It is supposed to give inspiration to students interested in creating their own blogs. We chose to post the materials bilingual, English-Romanian, for all parents and students and everyone who is interested about our project , to enable reading about the project activities even if they do not speak English, and …why not…..to „awaken” their interest in learning English!

Two years ago our journey began with a „suitcase” full of dreams, desires,interests,curiosities, questions, plans for the future…With every imagined and undertaken activity , with every result, we have filled more that „suitcase”. We have put there computer skills working with an improved English, many new knowledge in various fields, huge discoveries about ourselves, many amazing memories, friends for life… 

We have a little bit of our journey then we carefully place this „suitcase” in place of honor, not so hidden so that we can use whenever we need! 

We are proud of what we created . 

We are fulfilled as 

HUGE DESIGNERS. 

ROMANIAN TEAM