Seminar - Pirita kindergarten introduces Erasmus+ projects results

On the 31st of May Pirita kindergarten held a seminar for Tallinn kindergarten colleagues (24 people) to introduce our Erasmus+ projects results.

In Pirita kindergarten just finished two national projects. First was Erasmus+ cooperation project "See - Our Nature!" with Bulgaria, Croatia, Latvia and Cyprus kindergartens. Project objective was to give the children broad knowledge of nature education through outdoor education and observing nature. We wanted to make a connection child-nature through motivated learning and in the same time increase teachers professional skills.

During the project we dealt with 6 themes - Health and well-being, Our Sea, Our Forest, Animals In Our Nature, Nature Protection and Our Climate. With each theme the partners made activities with children which can be seen in our blog (https://erasmusseeournature.blogspot.com/) and the best were chosen for the activity book, which is ready also. With each theme we also had a meeting with partners, unfortunately most of them virtual but the last one physical In Croatia.

We also had one more activity, each partner chose a place in nature to photograph through two school years, so that children could observe nature and seasonal changes. We made videos and picturebooks from them.

The other project was for staff mobility to increase teachers professional growth. 3 teachers were in Portugal to take part of course "European sharing views - Making sense of the world though multimedia". During the course the teachers got new knowledge how to make good videos. It was done through interesting tasks and visiting national cultural treasures.

The directors assistant in the field of education and 1 teacher went to a course in Iceland"Project based learning in the classroom, Iceland". They got knowledge what are the 21st century skills that the children need and how they implement project based learning in Iceland schools. In addition they got to visit two kindergartens and different local attraction. 

In the seminar we shared our experiences with international projects, how to start, what we have done, what our institution got from it and showed the results.

Additional value for the seminar gave presentation by Birgit Peterson, who works for HARNO and is specialist for Erasmus+ cooperational projects. And also came from Tallinn Educational Department budget specialist Riina Svarpstinš to explain Tallinn VPA database.

We thank all the teachers and directors who took part from the seminar! And big thank you for the presenters!

Helina Aaboja

Project results:

Our Climate - Climate and weather!

 Children age: 5-6 years

Objectives: he child knows why the climate is getting warmer in the world. The child knows actions and consequence relations. The child gets to planet earth. The child knows what is the different in climate and weather. The child knows that in different parts of the world the climate is different. The child can describe the weather, knows seasons and its features. The child knows what affects are good for the world and what bad.

The teacher made a video of all the activities that they did during the project. 

You can watch it here: https://youtu.be/5r2NBKypuag 

The activities in the video are:

1. Educational video for children to learn what weather and  climate is and the different types of climate there are in the world.

2. Children learn to notice the weather and climate around us. They mark the weather bingo!

3. Getting to know the globe. Children learn to locate globally for different types of climate

4. We repeat what kind of weather is in Estonia and play mTiny game.

5. We watch and observe our weather and m ake pictures from the clouds. We fantasize what characters we see in there!

6. We measure the temperature in different places: on forest, garden, inside.

7. We watch video "The earth has a fewer"

8. We make experiment - dark absorbs the warmth.

9. We make the earth from salt tough.

10. Let's find out  what has a positive/negative  effect on the climate.

11. We watch video 10 things we can do to protect our earth.

12. We play a game:

13. We color the earth and hang them on the sealing with heart cards were we wrote the good things to do.

Our Climate - Activities with mTiny

CHILDREN’S AGE: 4-6 years old

OBJECTIVES: The child knows how to make the robot mTiny move. The child can move the robot by using direction cards or joysticks. The child knows the meaning of + (plus) and - (minus). The child knows the thermometer. The child knows which transportation or moving around is good for the climate (make happy) or bad for the climate (makes sad). The child knows that words are made of letters. The child can put the letters in the right order. The child knows different letters and names them. The child knows the seasons.

ACTIVITY: With the theme climate the teachers thought out some games for the mTiny robot.

Game 1 - mTiny and thermometer. The children are divided into pairs. At first one child is rolling the dice and tells the other what comes out. When comes +2, it means 2 steps forward, or -1 is 1 step back. The other is moving mTiny by using forward and back cards. Then they switch places. And make it again.
The mTiny is moving on the thermometer on the floor. The children are able to see when it is moving to the blue side it is cold and the plus side is red.

    

Game 2 - Transportation affects the planet. In this game the children try to move the robot with a joystick. At first the child chooses an earth card from the floor. On the other side there is a happy face or sad face. Then the child has to choose the transportation (bicycle, motorcycle, car, bus, plane or walking) that makes the planet happy or sad and move the mTiny on it. They also have to tell that how or why it makes the planet happy or sad.
   

Game 3 - Learn letters with mTiny. The child finds a letter from the box. Puts it on top of mTiny with gum. Then takes the mTiny joystick and steers the letter to the right season picture and puts the letter in the right letterbox. Then drives the mTiny back and finds the next letter.

  

Our Climate - Sun and rain

CHILDREN’S AGE: 1,5 - 2 years old

OBJECTIVES: The child knows and can name yellow and blue colors. With the help of adult names weather phenomena (it is raining, sun is shining). The child can cover the base with color. The child uses different tools to make imprints. The child covers the base with glue and glues details on paper.

The group starts with a little song. They sing “Who is with us today…” to know everybody's names. Teacher has brought some pictures and they look at them. There are pictures of the sun shining and from the rain. The children try to reply with one or two word sentences about what they see on picture. They also try to say what people do when the sun is out or it is raining.
On the first day the children made sun.
To make the sun the child took a brush and covered the round sun disc with color. Then we put it dry for a while. When all the children had colored it and the first suns were dried the child put glue with the brush behind the sun disc and glued it on paper. Then the child took a fork and yellow color to make sunbeams. The child holds the fork so that branches are upwards, dips it to color and makes an imprint on paper around the yellow disc. The child has to dip the fork in color after every couple of imprints. And beautiful suns are ready.

The next day we started the activity as the day before. But then we moved behind the table to make art about rain. At first the child takes a piece of sponge and blue color. The child dips the sponge inside the color and then pushes colored sponge on paper and makes the cloud blue. Then we put it to dry for a while. Then we take new base paper and the teacher helps to color the child's hand blue. The child makes imprints with hand fingers always one way. When the colored cloud has dried the child puts glue with a brush behind it and glues it where the hand prints are. So you can see clouds and rain.

Our climate - Activities with wind

Children age 3-4 years

You can use wind for many activities:

- We made wind flags! We used a straw, glued some glittering tapes on it and ready it was!

- We had a washing day! We washed all our dolls clothes by hand. Then we put it out outside to dry! It was nice sunny and windy day! 

- We played blowing game! You had to blow to get the ball in the hole! 

- We used blowing the wind also in arts! We took paper, put some watercolors on them and the used straws to blow. And ready were our arts!

Nature protection - City model "The birthday of the Republic of Estonia"

Children age: 4-5 years

Objectives: The child knows when it is the birthday of the Republic of Estonia (24th of February). The child knows the colors of Estonian flag. The child knows that we celebrate the birthday with parade and there a lots of people. The child knows that Estonian flag is in top of Tall Hermann tower. The child knows how to draw and craft. The child knows how to make houses, cars, people and flags from reused materials and create city from them.

The children made people. They had to cut out people photos from catalogs and glue them on thick paper.

From old boxes we made houses and cars. They used colored papers to cover the boxes, make windows and doors.

Finally the city of Tallinn was ready!

Nature protection - My friend

 The Meelespea group children got a task from the teacher: to make at home a friend from reused materials! 

When they were all brought to the group the children had to introduce their new friends to the others. They had to tell what was it's name, what can it do and what characteristics it has.

And then they made an exhibition in the hallway to all groups to see their new friends!

     

Nature protection - Treasure hunt in the forest

Children age: 2 years

Objectives: the child sees and notices nature around. the child acts environmentally friendly.

The teacher had made a treasure hunt worksheet for the activity. 

Because the children are 2 years old and can't write themselves then they had only one worksheet per group. On the worksheet the teacher marked the things that the children found (like cones, branches and so on) or the things they notice (like clouds, birds, animal tracks and so on).

Nature protection - Activities with children 2-3 years

 HOW CAN WE PROTECT OUR HOMETOWN NATURE?

Objectives: How can we protect and care for nature/forest? How do we have to act in nature and forest? Reusing and using nature materials.

Activities:

- We talked about nature and forest. How it is important to us. What we can find in nature. and so on.

- Then we made walks forest near our kindergarten. We explored the trees and plants.


- Then we gathered fir and pine tree cones from the forest.

- Then inside we reminded which is fir tree and which is pine tree? We explored which one has longer or shorter thrones. And which cones are bigger, which smaller?

- Then we took seeds from the cones to plant.

- To protect nature we also planted some meadow plants to preserve nature diversity.
   

- Then we made some paper! At first tore some old used paper and soaked it into water. Then pushed the mass on tray. Then we decorated it and let it dry.

- We used the gathered fir and pine tree cones to make flowers. Paint the cones and put on a stick!

Nature protection - Sorting and cleaning packaging

CHILDREN’S AGE: 4-5 years old

OBJECTIVES: The child knows that we sort packaging (glass, paper, cardboard, packaging, bio-waste). The child knows shapes and colors. The child knows letters K,P,T. The child can move the Ozobot robot.

ACTIVITY: 

We talked about sorting packaging. What color trash bins have we seen (yellow, blue, green)? What kind of different trash there is (glass, cardboard, paper, packaging, bio-waste)? We play a movement game: the child picks a card. Looks at it and decides what kind of trash that is? The child hops on the right track to the trash bin. They have to know the right color and shapes.

When some children were playing the movement game the others were able to play two different sorting games behind the table. The same pictures were used. In one you had to sort the pictures to the right place.

Then we tried to clean the forest with a help of machine and children had to make Ozobot robot to move. At first they made a trash cleaning plow for the Ozobot (from cardboard). Then the teacher gave them paper with pictures of trees and trash bin. The child had to draw with special marker a way to the Ozobot robot. The ways had to be so that the Ozobot with the plow will gather the trash and move it to trash bin.



When the trail was ready the child put robot in the beginning and watched if it was able to gather all the trash. if needed they were able to draw more lines so that all trash would be gathered from the forest.