Welcome! study visit in Bassa Reggiana 6-13 of March 2011

Groups coming from Germany, Spain and Turkey during this week are involved in the L2L project activities

Participants are visiting the spaces making observations and documentation on activities at the Ginestra and Rodari Preschool with pedagogists Giliola Belli, Patrizia Benedetti and teachers.

There were some moments to share reflections among teachers and pedagogues and among teachers and politicians of Bassa Reggiana District.

The mayor of Poviglio (Giammaria Manghi), the President of Progettinfanzia (Ferruccio Crotti) and the Director (Cristian Fabbi) met personally the group.

and .... there have been occasions to taste good food and have a good chat!



dinner at home

buffet at pre-school

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Preparatory meeting

On 28 February, teachers met the pedagogical coordinators at infant toddler center  “Rodari” in Poviglio town, to discuss about “L2L project”.

The participants to the meeting were:

TEACHERS

Boschini Cristina

Campanini Greta

Iammarino Tiziana

Lazzaro Pamela

Menozzi Grazia

Pellino Claudia

Soli Sara

Soncini Alessandra

Soncini Rossana

Vettorello Patrizia

PEDAGOGICAL COORDINATORS

Marconi Mascia

Benedetti Patrizia

Ferrari Alessandra

Belli Giliola

Tagliavini Vania

PROJECT COORDINATOR

Rossi Federica

DIRECTOR OF PROGETTINFANZIA

Fabbi Cristian

They reflected about the focuses and generative questions introducing the next week’s programme:

FOCUSES

1)       Which spaces and materials can we observe in the different schools?

2)      In which way do these spaces support autonomies, communication and social skills?

GENERATIVE QUESTIONS

•  What are the key ideas and choices on the basis of our environmental planning?
•  Inwhich way does the environment support children to experiment polisensoriality?
•  In which way does the environment support children autonomies?

PROGRAMME

from 6 to 11 March 2011

_Sunday, 6  arrival at the hotel Old River in Guastalla (RE)         

                                                                                                
_ Monday,7

8.45                   departure from the hotel to Poviglio Municipality (by PI shuttle services)

9.00                   welcome at Ginestra pre-school and delivery of materials (participants kit)

9.30                   division of the participants into two groups:

                         group 1  visit of Ginestra preschool

                         group 2  visit of infant toddler center Rodari

10.00/13.00        visit and observation at preschool and infant toddler center

13.00/14.00        lunch at the schools

14.00/16.00        free observation tour around the school

16.00                 return to the hotel (by PI shuttle services)

20.00                 dinner with teachers and pedagogical coordinators

_ Tuesday, 8

8.45                   departure from the hotel to Poviglio Municipality (by PI shuttle services)

9.00                   meeting at infant toddler Rodari with pedagogical coordinators and local administrators

10.00/13.00         workshop and visit o the school environment

13.00/14.00         lunch of the two groups together

14.00/16.00         meeting with schools teachers

16.00                  return to the hotel (by PI shuttle services)

free evening

_ Wednesday, 9

8.45                    departure from the hotel to Poviglio Municipality (by PI shuttle services)

9.00-13.00           observations at schools

                           group 1  visit of Ginestra preschool

                           group 2 visit of Rodari infant toddler

13.00-14.00         lunch at the schools

16.00                  return to the hotel (by PI shuttle services) or (facultative) presentation of the

  “Forest group- Kinderhaus Maintal” at Palazzo Bentivoglio, Gualtieri Town

16.30-18.30         training meeting with teachers and pedagogical coordinators of the province of Reggio Emilia

19.55                  departure from the hotel

20.00                  official dinner at La Merla restaurant, Gualtieri town

_ Thursday, 10

8.45                    departure from the hotel to Poviglio Municipality (by PI shuttle services)

9.00-13.00           observations at schools

                          group 1  visit of Ginestra preschool

                          group 2  visit of Rodari infant toddler

13.00-14.00         lunch at the schools

14.00-16.00         workshop and group discussion

16.30-18.00         meeting at Ginestra preschool. Presentation of reflections and consignement of certificates.

  Aperitif

_ Friday, 11

free excursion

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Ted İstanbul Koleji Vakfi Ozel Anaokulu (Istanbul _ Turkey)

“Ted İstanbul Koleji Vakfi Ozel Anaokulu” is a pre-school founded in 1998 that operates within a dual-language environment of Turkish and English. It is situated in an environment friendly large area; full of trees and a rich nature but it also is very close to the center of the city.It’s located on the Asian side of Istanbul,the largest city in Turkey with a population of 13.8 million. Istanbul is also a mega city, as well as the cultural and financial centre of Turkey. It extends both on the European and on the Asian sides of the Bosphorus, and is thereby the only metropolis in the world that is situated on two continents. The TED initials of our school represent ‘Turkish Education Association’ which was founded in 1928 by ATATÜRK, the founder of Turkish Republic, with a purpose of establishing high standard education for children of the promising republic. While founding TED, Ataturk aimed to educate children raised within the Turkish culture to have a wider vision and to master a foreign language. Our school has a very important mission of providing children in need a chance of high quality education. Embracing the slogan ‘the school of learners’, the administrators, teachers and students form a community dedicated to lifetime learning and service. Our school program focuses on achieving high academic standards and helping make a better world for its students and its students making the world better for everyone within and outside the national boundaries.

"Our school considers intellectual, social, physical, moral and aesthetic growth as inherent qualities of any educational policy. Therefore, it gives real importance to the richness of the environment and the extra-curricular activities."

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Escola Pericot (Girona _ Spain)

“Escola Pericot” is one of the three new schools created recently in Girona . Our city has a population near 100.000 inhabitants, and is growing up constantly by the arrival of immigration. So we are expanding every year until be complete like a Pre-Primary and Primary school. As a school created according the need to give recepcion to the huge inmigration flow that we have been had last years, our classrooms are plenty of children from different countries, south-american mainly. Reciving children from this ages, from 3 to 8, it’s a great opportunitie to develop a program to insert them in our city. Now, while we wait for the building construction, we are located in prefabricated modules, near a small forest, a very perfect place for learning developed according the needs of children. To promote   a learn-to-learn environment could be a real way to connect different people as the environement is a reflect of the people who’s living there. Beliving environement supports knowledge, we need to choice the materials in a way to connect children and the context.

” To share this project with schools from differents countries and realities will be a great occasion to  think about our daily work and learn from partner’s experiencies. The chance to visit the schools while they are working suppose the best way to observe the project developing and a perfect situation to exchange impressions with the teachers as well."

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Kinderhaus (Maintal _ Germany)

The Kinderhaus is a municipal childcare facility of the town Maintal, district Bischofsheim. Maintal is in close proximity to financial center Frankfurt and counts approximately 40.000 residents. Maintal is directly connected to the conurbation of the Rhine-Main; many commuters are therefore based here.  The Kinderhaus is visited from Primary children’s school and kindergarten children aged 3 to 12 years from 25 different nations. Educational priorities are the natural and forest-related education, the competency-based and individual tutoring of children, gifted children and the integration of children with special needs and disabled. Here we see diversity as natural and enriching. This means, in this case, we don’t have children who need an individual special care any more, but every child need an individual special care in his own way. Therefore supporting these children will become ordinary. In the area of natural forest education we developed and installed for kindergarten children an integrated forest group. The forest has its particular features and materials for the children of a specific education and development space.

” This project offers the opportunity to formulate national goals on an international education platform and to make this process sustainable. The extension of our own experiences, the reflection of one’s own attitudes, knowledge of other education systems and the dialog offers many possibilities and opportunities to expand their own context and to promote the social value of child development. “

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Ginestra Pre-school (Poviglio _ Italy)

“Ginestra” is a preschool located Poviglio, a rural village in the province of Reggio Emilia. Poviglio belongs to the  Union of Municipalities “Bassa Reggiana” and has a population of 7.522 inhabitants. Our educational experience is based on the image of a child who has great potentials for development and is the subject of rights, a child who learns and grows in relation to the others. The specific identity of  “Ginestra” preschool is based on a number of distinct features: the participation of  families, the collegial work of the staff, the importance given to the school environment, the presence of the atelier  and the pedagogical-didactic coordinating team. We believe that children have inside  an innate potential of understanding how to relate to the world. The task of the teacher is to scaffold   abilities so that children can grow and learn. Children become researchers in the classrooms of our school, by learning to ask questions and to collect data   to build up comprehension. Teachers use arts (including painting, drawing, and working with clay, natural materials such as leaves and shells and recycled materials) as a vehicle to develop children's thinking processes.

“The main principle is the idea that children have strong abilities even since birth. They master a lot of different languages, possibilities and skills. The environment is an essential element to allow them to develop. The choice of materials is always thought in the direction of experimentation, the construction of possibilities, the connection between persons and things. This environment empowers the well-being of children as well as the custom of doing together. The relation is the core of our philosophy, and the environment should scaffold this possibility, listening children, and making research together with them.”

Mascia Marconi, Giliola Belli, Alessandra Ferrari, Vania Tagliavini,

Cristian Fabbi, Anna Avanzi, Patrizia Benedetti, Federica Rossi

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4th of November 2010 _ Start Conference in Bassa Reggiana (ITALY)

GUASTALLA _ Bassa Reggiana District
The first meeting of L2L Project was held on 4^th of November at Progettinfanzia Headquarters in Guastalla (RE).
The contact people from each country met to plan the contents and the arrangements about next study visits.



PARTICIPANTS

ITALY
Giammaria Manghi (Mayor of Poviglio Municipality)
Cristian Fabbi  (Director of Progettinfanzia)
Patrizia Benedetti, Mascia Marconi, Alessandra Ferrari, Tania Bertacchi, Giliola Belli, Vania Tagliavini (Bassa Reggiana Pedagogical Coordination)
Federica Rossi (Project Coordinator)

TURKEY
Ark Aysegul, Gurkan Begum, Kalafat Aylin, Baglar Kubra

SPAIN
Angel Villalòn Torres and Vanessa Planas Iglesias

GERMANY
Geany Schittenhelm,  Anja Grebe,  Elke Kächelein



DURATION The project starts now with the Start Conference and will finish with the final reports in September 2012



DEADLINES The partners involved in the project have to fill in some documents:
by 30 June  2011: middle-term report and M-Tool Questionnaire
by 30 September 2012: final report and EST system



MOBILITIES As agreed, 24 mobilities will be planned for the whole project



CALENDAR
from 6 to 13 March 2011 (Italy)
from 1 to 8  May 2011 (Turkey)
from 3 to 9 October 2011 (Germany)
from 18 to 25 March 2012 (Spain)
May 2012 (Closing Conference in Italy)



WORK SCHEDULE
In the morning the teachers will observe the hosting teachers work with children, experiencing their way of working;
in the afternoons, we will organize meetings among teachers in order to reflect and discuss about the focus of the project and to give answer to their curiosities .
During the study visits teachers will use observation and reflection of the educational practice.
At the end of the week the visiting teachers will make a presentation about their conclusions.
To experience the culture of the hosting country we will organize some social moments as dinners and guided walks alltogether.

Visit and observation of classrooms

1st meeting at Ginestra pre-school

Meeting at Progettinfanzia Headquarters:

presentation of partners and discussion about the project

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L2L Project approved!

L2L Project “Learning to Learn: the environment as third educator supporting autonomy and experimentation of knowledge” has been approved by the LLP National Agency.The Project will last 2 years (2010-2012) and will be fully granted by the EU. Progettinfanzia (Italy) is the coordinator of the project and the partners involved are:  Escola Pericot (Spain) – Ted Istanbul Koleji Vakfi Ozel Anaokulu (Turkey) -Kinderhaus Stadt Maintal (Germany). The project connects the partners through exchange and counseling of experiences developed in the Preschools and Institution participating in this project. The main goal of the project is to create learning-to-learn environment, and to share a wider discussion about quality in education. We could define the environment as the third educator because together with children  and adults it participates in the educational processes. The environment supports knowledge, imagination and creativity of each child. It reflects the culture of the people living there; it is the result of reflections, aesthetic choices making in the specific outcome of a pedagogical  way of living. Welcoming, listening, exchanging and discussing the keywords  which will support meetings with teachers who will visit the preschools and build together a dialogue about education.

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