28 May 2013

Travel broadens the mind. Let's travel together! (Comenius Project)

Third Cycle of Primary School
Colegio San Gregorio

On September 2011 we started with a Comenius Project at Colegio San Gregorio in Aguilar de Campoo. The title has been: Travel broadens the mind. Let’s travel together!


‘Travel broadens the mind’ is a long-standing and well-known saying in many societies. It is certainly true that travel really does widen horizons, broadens experience and enriches the soul.

By participating in the project, "Travel broadens the mind. Let’s travel together!", we want both students and teachers who are participating in it, to realize the above-mentioned truth. In carrying out the project activities, we will procure the necessary knowledge and skills for responsible travel planning, preparation and for the travel itself. Participation in the project - due to increased language, mathematical and ICT skills, larger geographical and historical knowledge, and above all, thanks to the experience gained through direct contact with representatives of other countries - will allow participants to reap the benefits of travel for the duration of the project and hopefully will instill a desire to carry on travelling in the future . In today's globalized world, and even more in our united Europe, the skills gained by participating in the project are important and necessary, not only because of the enjoyment of traveling. Increasingly, people in the United Europe move and travel as part of their job, that’s why it is so important to prepare our students for their future.

In this project are implied six european countries:
      Zespół Szkolno-Przedszkolny nr 3 im.Jana Pawła II, in the city Rynick, in Polond.
      Holy Trinity Church of England Junior School, in the city of Guildford, in England.
      Istituzione Scolastica Autonoma 6, in the city of La Spezia, in Italy.
      Tjarnaskoli, in the city of Reykjavik, in Iceland.
      Selcuk Yahsi Ilkogretim Okulu, in the city of Inegol, in Turkey.
      Colegio San Gregorio, in the town of  Aguilar de Campoo, in Spain.
Through the idea of a mascot who needs to travel around Europe to know it and show it to the Comenius partners we have tried to develop our students autonomy of travelling and preparing a trip. Also and the most important thing we have focused in the idea of: “we can learn something from each trip we have”.

In the website you can have a look to all the activities we have done along the two years it has been amazing because it has implied many teacher and many subjects in the different activities: Science, Arts and Crafts, English, Spanish, Music....


We have done many different activities such as:

     Videoconferences.
     We created a “Talking dictionary” in where each Comenius partner read some basic words in their own language using Drive and Screencast-o-matic.
     During the last summer they had to create their own “NUBI” and send postcards and create presentations about their summer holidays.
     ….

One of the most important activities has been the visits to the different schools. We had the opportunity of sharing points of view about education and methodologies. But the most amazing trip was the one to Guildford, England with six students. They really enjoyed. And, as my collegue said, we were flabbergasted to see how can our student could speak and communicate in a foreing language and with foreing people.

Here you can watch a summary of the visit (It was done by @julisanzmamolar):





We will go to Poland with the students from 3rd to 7th June.

This kind of project offers many benefits to our students:
     They will open their minds to other cultures and ideas.
     They will improve their skills in the foreing languages,
     The can share time and spaces with foreing english students.
     They work on short projects in English, and they are really motivated.

But it also offers many benefits to the teachers:
     They can share time talking about educational topics.
     They can observe different schools during the visits.
     They can improve teaching skills learning from good working practises of other school.
     They can improve English or feel the necessity of learning it.

Here you have the summary of the last visit our partners did to our school last month. It was a really enriching experiences for students and teachers.





I hope you like it. And I want to give a very big thank you to my colleague, @julisanzmamolar, who has supported me a lot along the two years this project has lasted. 

Javier Ramos Sancha
@javiramossancha

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