Our Erasmus+ partner school in Kursenai in Lithuania hosted a virtual training course last week from April 20th to 23rd 2021. Ms Brennan attended it and has reported to the staff that it was very interesting and informative.
Our Project is called Full STEAM Ahead and its purpose is to increase digital literacy in Early Years Education. Our Lithuanian partners designed the training programme around around music and technology.
They presented their country, region and school on the first day. It was very interesting to see a preschool with pupils from 1 - 6 years and how they spend their day learning through play and developing independence and social skills. Each day was arranged very well with a good balance of presentations, recorded training and practical exercised for all the participants to be active in together.
The Lithuanian team shared a recipe and shared a recording of their school cook making a local traditional cake. This was then baked my each of the participants that evening and enjoyed with a cup of tea or coffee the next day. There was a folk dance taught... and practised by all. Ms Brennan had to dance around her kitchen on her own! It was wonderful to see the Lithuanian teachers in traditional dress perform the lovely folk dances. It was then followed by a recording of young children aged 4 dressed in local costume and doing the folk dances together - beautiful!
The Lithuanian school has invested heavily in technology in music recently with the help of the Erasmus+ grant. They have explored the use of MAKEY MAKEY in the classroom with the children to create their own music. As part of the training, all the participants created their own xylophone using paper, glue and tinfoil and of course a MAKEY MAKEY kit.
https://youtu.be/P0Vjl6UBLcQ
The school also bought some fantastic outdoor musical instruments. Click on the following link to see this: https://youtu.be/6jCIEbWoFnU
There was a virtual tour of the museum of industry and an art museum on the last day and a lovely activity where the teachers explored some virtual reality in art. Using the app QUIVER, the teachers downloaded some pictures to be coloured and then using the app, they could see the pictures come to life. This will be lovely for our pupils to try. https://youtu.be/6jCIEbWoFnU
The next partner to host training is our Estonian partner school in Tallinn. They will do training on robotics during the last week of May. Once again this will have to be done virtually.
The last partner to host training will be our Spanish school in Granada. We are optimistic at the moment that we will be able to carry out the training physically and all meet up again as the project draws to an end.
We had also planned to do pupil exchanges with the Spanish school in May 2020 and May 2021 but it is with great regret that Covid-19 has made this impossible.
Please visit the Full STEAM Ahead website Lithuania Virtual Meeting (weebly.com) and the Lithuanian school Šiaulių r. Kuršėnų lopšelis-darželis „Eglutė“ – Šiaulių r. Kuršėnų lopšelis-darželis „Eglutė“ (kursenueglute.lt) website to see more about our Erasmus+ project. Šiaulių r. Kuršėnų lopšelis-darželis ,,Eglutė" | Facebook
There is also a Facebook page for Full STEAM Ahead Full Steam Ahead – Posts | Facebook
