teamwork
Visiting the historical National Library of Greece, just before its relocation after 114 years
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
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
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 song from Finland
Aino, a student from Finland visits our school and shares with us songs of her country. We pay back!
A real firefighting project in kindergarten
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
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!
Moping in toddlers class
Is that play?
Sharing is a great thing
One day, Thanasis brought in toddlers’ class a book titled “This is mine!” Two friends who play together but find it too hard to share their toys…
“How easy is for us to share our toys?”, we asked children. Not so easy…
One small car in our class had the same problem. It was alone, because it could not share its toys. So, we decided to help it…
We became friends with the small car and drove it to the big “Luna Park of sharing”, the place where all children and cars share their toys.
Each one of as waited at his/ her own station, to drive the small car towards the next station and finally up to the end of the road, where the Luna park was. When the small car arrived there, it wasn’t alone anymore!
Kids played, cooperated, waited patiently for their turn, but most important helped the small car to understand that sharing is a great thing…
(by Jenny Diamantopoulou, teacher in toddlers’ class in Athens)
Life-derived Learning 