Polish week in Iceland

Here is the film from Polish week in Iceland

http://vimeo.com/31423508

Polish week at Torvmyrane Skule

Like last time with Iceland, we arranged our Poland-week as activity days where we mixed all classes and groups at school. Only 1-and 2years old children had separate activities, everyone else from 3- 12 took part in the same classes. This is something we do every year with different topics, but during the Comenius project, our topic is partner countries and their schools.

(photo borrowed from: local newspaper, Firdaposten)

 220 children at all ages are divided into groups named after cities in Poland: Warszawa, Krakow, Lublin and Swidnik. The groups rotates through 4 main activities: Polish school lesson. Arts and Crafts, PE and Maths.

Mathematics is fun when you can play it!

A popular post was Polish  school lesson, where headmaster Øivin  opened a kiosk in the 10-minute break.Normally candy is not welcome at school, but today was different!

  This is a part of Polish school the children appriciated! The childrens had 5 zloty each to spend, and only limited openinghours.

 Very happy pupils bought very expensive lollipops! "But it was worth it"- they said.

Also the teacher lined up to spend some zloty!

 We saw the movie "Track a child" made by Swidnik team in Poland. We compared what was similar and what was different.

 

Anita teaches the class historical facts and geography from Poland

 RE was taught by a nun, Sister Tove.

(photo borrowed from: local newspaper, Firdaposten)

Jan teaches the kids about foreign currency.

(photo borrowed from: local newspaper, Firdaposten)

A "pope" came and told us about Pope John Paul 2.

Monica tells the story about the trumpet player in St. Marys´church in Krakow.

In PE we tried out a lot of fun activities which we learned on the sports field in School no 5.

 (photo borrowed from: local newspaper, Firdaposten)

The teachers who had visited Swidnik got a lot of ideas to try out at school. We tried out many of them during Polish Week, and the results are now displayed in our halls.
Take a look at more pictures on Torvmyrane`s website!


The Poland arrangement was a success, and we had a local journalist following us a whole day,giving us lots of attention in the newspaper the following day.
We all enjoyed the days, thank you for the inspiration School no 5!

Icelandic exhibition down- Poland up!

First thing to do is to change focus from Iceland to Poland. These nice Friendship- chains were made on our Icelandic week last spring, and have decorated the halls for some months.  

 The chains consists of drawings and friendly words made by children from 3- 12 years old. This was an idea we got from Svalbardsskoli when visiting them in April.

Next up on display is Poland.

The team travelling in Poland bougt a lot of souvenirs from Poland,  these are now on display in our hallway. There should not be any doubt what country we are focusing on now!

The story about the origami-swans from Swidnik is making a deep impression on the children, and is the most popular object on display.

Comenius work in Norway - staff meeting

 On Wednesday  sept 7th, our full staff of almost 60 teachers, teaching assistants, kindergarden teachers, after school club leaders, deputies and headmaster- spent a full 3 hour eveningmeeting on Comenius.

 8 persons from staff had travelled to Poland and visited our partnerschool in Swidnik, and presented their impressions from Polish school life. Many ideas for further work with pupils and staff based on this trip, were presented. Further on, we planned the Polish Week for our organization, and the upcoming visit from our partners.

We now truly believe that the Comenius-project is a part of Torvmyrane School´s identity. Many from staff have over the last 3 years been able to travel , and the interest in taking part in the project at home has increased proportional. We dare to say our project is a success, and  it is a pity we are only months from the end.

Polish week in Wales

We continue to strengthen our partnerships with our Comenius countries. We had a lovely time in school using ideas from Poland. We focussed on the importance of healthy eating, making sandwiches, pizzas, fruit kebabs and delicious smoothies. We learnt more about sainthood and looked at St.David and the importance he plays in our local church. We concentrated on further improving our handwriting skills, this has been so beneficial that it has become part of our school rountines. Our children are also enjoying our regular podcast and look forward to meeting children from other countries. We look forward to learning more from working with England and Norway.

Polish Week 2011 from Dobson on Vimeo.

Icelandic week - Norway

After visiting Iceland, we were full of inspiration and impressions. To share this feeling with our kids was our main goal in the Icelandic weekend. If we managed to do so, is hard to say, but we did indeed enjoy our Icelandic days with the kids! We split ourselves in to 4 groups, named after things to see on the "golden circle". The activities where; Vulcanos, sports, cooking, arts and crafts, naturequiz, drawing, teamwork and experiments... Great fun!

Since we are short of volcanoes

for the moment, we made them ourselves!

The result of preparing for an Icelandic

lunch! And learning what the flag looks like.

Even if we like coloring, we agreed on the

fact that Volcanoes are "better" live!

It was not always easy to find the questions in the nature-quiz!

20 kids from age 3-12 in the kitchen at once!

Demonstration of pressure, volcanoes, and experiments you should not do at home!

A small vulcano! Eruptions are great even in a smaller scale!

About 250 kids, divided into 4 main groups. Age 3-12. About 10 different activities. We need fruit to stay sharpe all day!

Partner meeting in Swidnik, Poland

Finally, we could see Lublin and the region in summer! We enjoyed our last trip in November 2009, but looked forward to a brighter season. What a difference in weather! Had a great meeting in 30+ warm degrees Celsius, saw a lot, met nice children, cheerful staff and warm and friendly hosts. Here are some highlights: 

Welcome-dinner at Vanilla Hotel

Everyone were a bit delayed into Lublin on Tuesday 7th, but we had a nice meal at the hotel before going to sleep.

Early morning in Swidnik, English team ready to sweat!

Wednesday 8th was school visit. We got up early and in time for Magdas schedule. 

We were invited to join 3 classes, saw Polands track a child, and were guided around school by nice children. A hot hot hot day made us return early to Lublin.

Deputy head Mariola welcomes us

Visiting classes. This is one of the football classes

Impressing timetables!

Dancers from class 3. 

Consentration actitity. This we will try out back home!

Daniel and Kaspar proves that men CAN knit

In the evening we went back to Swidnik to a bonfire-party, which involved lots of traditional food and drinks, dancing ang karaoke. A very special night! 

Bonfire party. The Polish staff showed us how to party the Polish way. 

 Thursday we went back to school, where the coordinators had their meeting  while the rest of the visitors had fun outside in the sun. Different sports activities was arranged by Greg and the schools sports team. The warm day in Swidnik was ended by a heavy rain shower while walking around in the streets.

A tour around Swidnik

Next up was a busride to the beautiful village Kazimierz Dolny, where we all checked in to Villa Bohema. We had a guided tour around the area, and at the end farewell- dinner at the hotel.

Wales and Norway left early Friday, while England and Iceland could sleep.....

Villa Bohema: a wonderful place

Kazimierz Dolny

Thank you Magda and everyone for  a great stay in Poland! 

Icelandic Week in Poland

After priceless experience in Iceland we decided to try something really challenging for our big school. We have chosen 11 pupils of different age to form a special class for the purposes of  the project. 
Basia - our most valuable teacher, experienced in various schools around the world, took charge of the class. 
She prepared  special classroom materials for the group - so that it could serve 7 years old as well as 12 years old children. Using national symbols of Iceland all of the children were searching for information on the Internet and within object supplied for them from Iceland. Older children did writing reports about the origin of the symbols, gave description of most interesting and rear  natural phenomena. All pupils displayed charts summarizing their work in the school library.


Basia sais- I was surprised how well the group cooperated. When I compare it to standard class, it was more difficult for me to design such activities. They must involve all the pupils at the same time. I cannot imagine teaching writing 7 years old and 12 years old in one class, it’s so different.

Filip  10 years  – we had to help the younger pupils
 (Filip is helping a younger girl )
David 10 years – The older girls helped us – that was great. ( David is being helped by an older girl) I liked the silence as well. There were so few pupils.
Kinga 12 years- That was strange not to wear shoes at school, but we got used to it. 

After classroom work the experimental class went out to play Kubbspel. The team emerged naturally and the game caused great excitement within the players us well as the spectators. 

In Gosia’s third class they were learning very useful Icelandic craft – knitting. The effects are quite interesting and the authors are very proud of them!

During Icelandic week we practiced a very special sport-  Glima . The hardest part was to obtain the special equipment , but Ania was able to supply it against all odds.
Class 4 C - We love Glima. It's a great opportunity to get rid of stress  :)