One day in toddlers’ class, Cynthia decided to read a story for her friends.
She chose two books and asked Helen: «Helen, which one do you want to read?” Helen chose one of them and Cynthia said: «Well done Helen for choosing the book by yourself!»
Then, children sat in a circle and Cynthia started “reading” the book. All were listening carefully and of course at the end had questions. But Cynthia, had all the answers!
(by Jenny Diamantopoulou, teacher in toddlers’ class in Athens)
Sometimes we, educators, make mistakes…
One day, in our beloved yard, Chrysi got a cart, turned it upside down and tried to climb on it.
I hastily said “Chrysi, that’s not right“. She, however, stepped on it and proudly started playing by turning cart into a slide. The game started and Christos came to claim his turn.
All I had to say then was “next please!“. Chrysi’s “wrong” use of the cart turned out to be the right game!
(by Maria Gryllaki, teacher in babies’ class in Athens)
Babies discovered plenty of empty tomato cans in our yard and decided to create noise!
Used various toys and a paint brush as drum sticks….
They even composed a song. And after finishing their show, like a good rock band, packed instruments into the car and drove away….
(by Anastasia Kouroubali, teacher in babies’ class in Athens)
In school bus kids started a discussion about how does water gets included into the clouds and where does it come from?
First, we noted on paper our thoughts and thought about the continuous circular movement of water. We talked about the global water cycle and wrote down the phrase, in Greek.
Afterwards, we experimented over the phenomenon of condensation and found out that our breath is hot air. Blurring the windows of the school bus with our breaths, helped us realize how air changes into liquid.
Then we played by creating patterns on the windows. Some children recognized the same happens in their bathroom.
The experimentation thrilled children and their interest continued at home. So, Despina brought us a photo she took out of the experiment she made in home with a glass and ice cubes.
We also studied the opposite phenomenon, evaporation, in which water is converted into air. We all remembered, from our daily life, when mom spreads out wet clothes to dry. At the same time we threw water on our trousers to see what happens and how quickly it dries.
Back in class, school bus children continued to experiment on evaporation during cleaning the blackboard with a wet sponge. They wrote something on the board using the wet sponge and shortly after it was lost! Rest children of the class liked the experiment and asked to write with a wet sponge, too. As you can imagine, we ended having the cleanest blackboard in school!!
(by Eleni Triantafyllopoulou, bus school teacher in Athens)
After the experience children had in school bus with Spyridoula’s eye glasses, they asked me if I can see clearly while not wearing mine.
I replied that when not in glasses, I use eye-lenses. Next day, I gave them a pair of lenses to come in contact with. They touched them, smell them and realized that after a while they got dry.
So, I told them to place them into their own case with the special liquid and lenses became wet and resilient again.
Since then, every time that I don’t wear glasses, children look into my eyes and try to “locate” my lenses.
(by Chrysa Vaitsi, cross-class projects’ coordinator in Athens school)
Life-derived Learning 