One of the most beautiful life-derived projects we have performed in our school
dorothy snot
Shopping in the local store
Christmas Party 2015
Ophthalmology class in school bus!
Children always laugh when they see my eyes like this!
One day, kids asked me: “hey, what’s happening with your glasses and they can make your eyes so big? We want to know how you see”!
I told them eye-doctor says I have Hypermetropia. “And how does he know?” they further asked. So, I brought them printed papers with numbers and pictures, like the ones eye-doctors use.
They started examining themselves
and also asked to be examined by their friends.
Then, I gave them my glasses to understand “how I see”. Children tried them in many ways and said “Woooooow, everything looks bigger through your glasses!!!”.
They got really excited by all this. Now, they may decide to construct an eye-clinic in class, examine other children and prescript the right glasses!!!
(by Spyridoula Patouna, teacher in pre-K class in Athens)
Free Play
Free play emerges everywhere, you just need to let it happen.
Free play involves anything, you just need to have stuff around.
Free play can be more fascinating if you have a friend to mess with.
Free play can be relaxing, you just need to let yourself be.
Free play can be collaborative, you just need to share it with your friends.
Free play is natural, it’s play and it’s free!
(by Spyridoula Patouna, teacher in pre-K class, in Athens)
Hanging a paper tape in babies’ class
I hanged the paper tape over babies’ heads and they instantly started to experiment with it.
Stretched their body in order to reach the tape, touched it, twisted it and eventually, as were trying to play with it, they improved their movement.
And beyond that: discovered one more tool to communicate each other!
(by Anastasia Kouroubali, teacher in babies class in Athens)
A cloud in toddlers’ class
One day Eleni, Thanasis and Mirto while playing in class, looked up and saw a cloud.
“Wow, let’s bring it down here”, Eleni said. But that wasn’t so easy. Children raised their hands, but understood they weren’t tall enough.
Suddenly, Thanasis said: “we need a ladder” and he went in another room to find one. But there was no ladder around…
Then, Mirto had another idea. She grabbed a chair and climbed on, and rest of the kids followed.
They raised their hands once more, but…
The cloud was still away. Kids tried and failed again. They didn’t managed to bring down the cloud. But it didn’t matter, at all!
The most important was that they didn’ t ask me for the cloud. Children did the whole thing just by themselves, shared so many ideas using words and tried everything they believed could help them accomplish their purpose.
And after failing again and again, they just moved to another game…
(by Jenny Diamantopoulou, teacher in toddlers class)
A spontaneous workshop
In free play time, Cynthia took a wooden block from building corner and a handsaw.
First, she tried to cut the wooden block with handsaw. But then, she thought twice and realized that it would look real if she put together two wooden blocks and pretend to cut where the two pieces come together!
More children started participating in her activity, by stacking blocks against the wall and creating a spontaneous workshop.
It was a symbolic play children started themselves and which helped them further develop their imagination, creativity, fine motor skill development and cooperation. Plus having fun, of course!
(by Evangelia Nteka, teacher in toddlers’ class in Athens)
Why not the whole universe
When we looked through our big plastic telescope, we noticed something very strange: everything had turned upside down!
So, we asked help from Yannis, an amateur astronomer!
He brought his professional telescope, let us see the sun through it and answered all our questions.
Children grabbed the opportunity to make constellations on the ground with sand and small stones.
But why not even form the whole universe!
(by Spyridoula Patouna, teacher in pre-K class in Athens)
So many ideas!
During time of free play, I took a roll of toilet paper and cut it into pieces. Then, Anastasia came and asked me what I was trying to do.
I told her “I’m trying to think what to do with this material, but I can not. Can you help me”?
She said we can make a case for pencils using the whole roll. Katerina came at the table and constructed a perfect case!
Then another idea came up. “We can make bracelets with the pieces you cut!”. So, Katerina, Artemis, Emily and Andriana made lots of beautiful bracelets.
Katerina said “hey, my case can also be used as a hanger for the bracelets!
Emily had another idea, and made a nice palm-tree!
So many ideas, with just some pieces of recycling paper…
(by Spyridoula Patouna, teacher in pre-K class)
Life-derived Learning 