International Fairy Tea Party 2016

September 25, 2016September 25, 2016 / dorothysnot / Leave a comment

We spent the whole week preparing our fairy tea party which took place on Thursday and Friday in the woods. After reading in school the legend of the rainbow fairies, we decided to help these little fairies make a rainbow.

In school, we put on the wings we made out of hangers and rope and practiced how to use the fairy dust and learnt a few spells! We mixed paints, just to find out that we only need three colors to make so many more.

We even tried to make our colors shine by sprinkling some fairy dust on them.

The result was to make everything around us shine bright, including ourselves!

On Thursday and Friday, we had a wonderful day in the woods!

We looked around for some fairy signs and while looking we found some acorns instead and a little tortoise wandering around.

We built our fairy welcome houses in the trees and decorated them the way we wanted.

Then, we went hunting for colors.

And used what we found to make a rainbow.

And after all this hard work, we set the table and had a cup of tea and biscuits!

(by Claire Hadjinikolaou, English teacher in Dorothy Snot, Athens)

Marrying Teacher Chryssa

September 20, 2016 / dorothysnot / Leave a comment

Learning occurring through play based on real life situations, is in the core of life-derived learning. Here is a perfect example:

Kindergarten kids visited a fashion house specializing in wedding gowns! They were excited (ok, it goes more for the girls!) and coming back in school decided to perform a wedding!

Teacher Chryssa was convinced to be the bride, so play started! (FYI, they took it up to the end!! 🙂 )

Building a paper-rocket machine!

August 12, 2016September 8, 2016 / dorothysnot / Leave a comment

Visiting the historical National Library of Greece, just before its relocation after 114 years

July 12, 2016July 12, 2016 / dorothysnot / Leave a comment

In our play-based school, we always look for opportunities to mingle with fascinating reality.

A coming cornerstone for Athens, our city, is the relocation of National Library of Greece and of Greek National Opera to the very new and impressive SNF Cultural Center, near city’s coast.

Since 1903, National Library of Greece has been located into a historical building in the very heart of the city, designed by Theofilos Hansen and constructed by the great Ernst Ziller. This status-quo will end by September 2016, so these days it was really the very last chance for our pre-K and summer campus kids (kindergarteners & alumni) to visit it.

Children of both classes have been working lately in a variety of projects on sea and volcanoes. So, it was a great opportunity for kids to visit the old building and utilize library services in their research, getting thus a good idea on why we need libraries!

Library policies are tough and usually do not allow hosting preschoolers, but our fantastic kids proudly made it!

Children searched their subjects in library computers….

….identified the needed sources….

…and copied all information needed.

All in all, it was a fantastic day for our kids. They grasped a lifetime experience, just days before it become a gone-for-good memory!

(big thanks to Library staff Ms. Vasiliki Tsigkouni, Tonia Pateropoulou and Agathi Papamichael, for their assistance.)

Walk like Mr. Roboto

July 11, 2016July 11, 2016 / dorothysnot / Leave a comment

During 2016 summer party, post-toddlers walk like the robot they made in class, Mr. Roboto!

A wonderful journey for pre-K class triggered by a visit to a Greek living art legend

July 4, 2016July 4, 2016 / dorothysnot / Leave a comment

Yesterday Sunday July 3, it was the summer party day for toddlers, post-toddlers and pre-K class. Our parties are always free play sessions, based in stimuli and projects children have been engaged the past months.

Pre-K class had the unique chance this year to visit one of the last living Greek art legends, the sculptor Mrs. Natalia Mela. It was such a moving experience for everybody!

After that, whole class entered into a fantastic journey in sculpturing by utilizing real life items, exactly like Mrs. Mela has been doing in her life!

By the use of everyday loose parts and other elements, our children created in class a number of fantastic artworks…

…and enjoyed a wonderful 3-month project.

So, it was normal to include this experience in summer party and connect their play to the sculpturing project. They worked in couples: one was the sculptor and the other was the sculpture! See the video:

Τhis is what life-derived learning is all about: Encouraging children to master unique lifetime experiences and then allowing them to build their own worlds.

2016 pre-Ks developed a strong love-for-sculpturing DNA, for life….

A real firefighting project in kindergarten

June 30, 2016 / dorothysnot / Leave a comment

In September 2016, our kindergarten kids participated into a real-life firefighting exercise organized by the officers of Athens 1st Firefighting Station.

It was a fantastic chance for them to be parts of real fire department team, to learn important things on safety and to see how a team works in real life conditions.

Many thanks to our friends in Athens Fire Department!

Self-propelled wooden boats

June 26, 2016June 30, 2016 / dorothysnot / Leave a comment

Working together with craftsman Ilias Karantoniou, kindergarten and summer camp kids created self-propelled wooden boats! After production was over, they used babies’ plastic swimming pool to test them!