Diary from Crete (English)
November 26th2023, first day of our job shadowing mobility within the Erasmus+KA122 project
Good morning,
Today, Sunday, we are already in Crete. As a welcome we stayed for dinner with all the teachers of the school that welcomed us. The school is called TSIKALARIA. By now, we only know the teachers. Tomorrow we will visit the school. By the first impression we have seen having the meal with the teachers, we are very sure that it will be a great experience.
November 27th 2023, Discovering Tsikalaria school!
Today, Monday, we got up at 6 am, very nervous because we are going to our new school, Escola Tsikalaria, for the first time. Amazing!
Nani, Pau and Cristina have rented a car to get to the school, which is 6 km far from Chania, where we have our accommodation. Nani will be our driver this week!
Here we are, it's 8 in the morning! Students start at 8:15, and the teachers are waiting to meet us at the door. First of all, we were greeted with a speech by the director and Erasmus+ coordinator of the school. Then the boys and girls said their daily prayer. Then everyone went to the classrooms, grade by grade, walking and greeting us. We, accompanied by the Erasmus coordinator, visited, one by one, all the classes in the school, where we introduced ourselves and got to know all the students. When we finished, the 6th grade boys and girls from the school performed a welcome song for us with different musical instruments and a 1st grade boy sang alone, a cappella. Very exciting and emotional!
Finally, we met with a few teachers and explained, using a presentation, what our school is like, what the classrooms are like and our methodology and different spaces in our school building. We shared the similarities and differences between both schools and they were very curious to learn about our center. They say that later they will explain to other teachers.
After that, we did a gamified geolocation and orientation activity around the school in order to discover and learn about the cultural heritage, monuments and most emblematic buildings related to the history of the city. We carried out the activity using two digital applications: Actionbound and Blippar. In this way, and following the instructions of the applications, we had to complete an itinerary following the clues and directions, getting points at each of the stops we made by making videos, audios, answering questions and solving challenges, until reach the end point, following a story that guided us. The activity lasted approximately one hour and we did it on foot, it was very fun and profitable. They have been two very interesting applications to learn about and we are already thinking about how we will apply and use them in our science projects at school!
Finally, we arrived at the school and met the rest of the teachers in the teachers' room, where we enjoyed a lunch together to end the day in a relaxed and pleasant atmosphere, we shared conversations and felt very welcomed by everyone.
In the afternoon we went to a very nice place to have a coffee together. The place is called Kukubagia, and it has spectacular views of Chania!
At the moment the experience is being very satisfactory. We'll let you know how it goes tomorrow. Click below to see a short video of our day.
November 28, 2nd day at the school Tsikalaria
Today, Tuesday, we went with the 4th grade students and four teachers from the school to see a hydroelectric power plant that is next to a lake. They carried out an activity with a person who guided the activity who explained the history, operation and the most important vocabulary related to this hydroelectric plant. Afterwards, they made a game with clues where the students had to put into practice the knowledge they had learned. At the end of the game, the students got a medal, like an award for they efford. Once the activity was over, we walked around the lake to a picnic area where we had breakfast and the students played. Finally, the bus picked us up and took us to school, where we arrived at half past one. We've been given a little preview of tomorrow's schedule at school and it looks pretty interesting, but you'll have to wait until tomorrow if you want to know more.
In the afternoon, we went to visit a big city called Rethimno, the third biggest city in Crete. It is a very beautiful city, with a lot of medieval architecture and Venetian and Turkish vestiges. We had lunch and visited the bay, where there is a small beach next to it. We walked all afternoon through its streets and enjoyed the history of the place without crowds. For sure in summer, it must be different!
See you tomorrow!
November 29th - Third day at TSIKALARIA school
This morning we left by coach with the 3rd and 5th grade students. The third grade group got off the bus before us to do an educational activity. Both courses go together to reduce the cost of the journey. We continued the route with the 5th grade students to do a "thinking" workshop. Upon arrival, we had breakfast and then the activity began. The master guide has explained the two proposed Steam challenges. The activity was guided by a presentation with a character that was the link with the final challenges. Boys and girls, in groups of four, did cooperative work. They had at their disposal material and basic utensils with which they had to use their ingenuity to achieve the final goal. At all times they were given the freedom to go through trial and error, without the intervention of any adult, so that the children made their own decisions and were the protagonists of their learning. Before doing the presentations, they had a moment to tidy up everything.
Only one group has reached its goal. The rest of the groups have come very close to achieving it. We really liked that before leaving, the teacher-guide held a conversation in a circle where the boys and girls expressed how they had felt, what the difficulties had been to "achieve the challenge" in a way that allowed them to , also, reflect on the work they have done cooperatively.
Back at school we collected the third year group. The teachers gave us a bag with recycled objects, which the children also had. A very nice detail!
At the end of the day, Pau, Nani and Cristina went to Kalyves for lunch. We are discovering some lovely places.
We will continue…
November 30 - Fourth day at TSIKALARIA school
Today is Thursday and it's Cristina's birthday. As soon as she arrived, teachers from the school congratulated her and prepared a giant homemade cake with candles included, to share.
As every day, after the collective prayer, the students went to their classrooms. We went to the multipurpose classroom where the fourth grade students prepared a recreation of the Battle of Marathon for us, using a representation with robots and Playmobil, an activity that took them many days to prepare and which students learnt about the history of their country.
After, we went to the 5th grade classroom where they were having a theoretical history class. The students interacted a lot.
After the break, we went to see a session in 4th grade classroom where, in cooperative groups, they were making a stop-motion. Some boys and girls gave us with many drawings made by them.
On our way to the first grade classroom, the music coming from the 6th grade classroom caught our attention. As always, they invited us in, and they sang the carols they were preparing. We were asked to sing the Jingle Bells song in our language and of course, we couldn't say no.
Quickly, we went to the 1st grade children's classroom where they were waiting for us, as the teacher had everything ready to tell the story "The selfish giant". Despite not understanding the language, it was very entertaining, as the teacher was very expressive and she used many elements during the explanation of the whole story. We could see that the students, as the story progressed, were very relaxed and went from sitting, to lying on the carpet and to holding hands and hugging each other (we see that the children of this school, they take great care of each other and show affection to each other).
We continued in the same classroom where the children carried out logico-mathematical activities in a cooperative manner related to the main character of the story.
The first thing they did was to represent the giant in a numbered grid where they had to paint the squares following the color legend. Then, using the Zaplycode app, they recreated the template on the tablet screen using the same color legend. They splited up and the teacher has given them some giant stencils to paint which later, once colored, they assembled together. Other children recreated the giant in 3D with "Lego" type pieces.
At the end of the day at school, as the weather was very good, we decided to go to Elafonissi beach, a beautiful beach where the sand is pink.
December 1 - Fifth and last day at TSIKALARIA school
Today is Friday and we are a little sad because it is our last day at this beautiful school.
We start our day by separating and going to make observations in different classrooms. Pau went to the second grade classroom where they started the day doing math corners related to multiplication. Nani and Cristina went to the 5th grade classroom where the students were carrying out an oral comprehension activity in English through a projected story. The name of the story was "Marshmallows", the citizens of a town are divided into lefties and righties. This was the nexus for the following activities. First, the boys and girls practiced their skills with their opposite laterality: cutting, writing, painting... The second related activity was, starting from a very basic material, to create an ambidextrous object. At the end, the students explained their object and demonstrated that it could be used with both hands in the same way. Finally, using the Elementary.com app, students recreated the story "Marshmallows."
After the break, we went to the multi-purpose room where the sixth grade students put into practice a STEM activity related to the concepts of weight, mass and density using the scientific method. The activity was distributed in four tables with the same material in all of them, plus one table with common material for all groups.
To start the activity, the students had previously prepared the introduction to the topic at home, working on the vocabulary and the most important concepts. The activity began with a conversation in a circle where the teacher makes the introduction and gave the instructions based on a digital presentation. During the conversation, the students asked questions, hypothesize and verbalize to each other what they had studied. At all times, the teacher acted as a guide, but the students were the protagonists of the activity.
Afterwards, the students were divided into four groups to start working cooperatively. At all times, we observed very motivated boys and girls putting into practice, calculating and recording the process.
Once the time for the practical activity was over, they had a conversation in a circle again and, one by one, everyone explained how the activity went and what the learning was. The evaluation activity was making a Kahoot .
Then was time to say goodbye. The teachers tell us that it had been a pleasure to share these days together and they gave us some small gifts for the school and for us. It still took half an hour to say goodbye to the boys and girls around the school. We had always felt very welcome. We took with us a very good memory of these days and a lot of resources and learnings to share and put into practice at Joan Casas.
We still had time to have lunch and dinner with some teachers.
Good night!
December 2 - Last day in Crete
Today Saturday we had the opportunity to go sightseeing visiting the famous beach of Triopetra and we visited the city of Réthimno again. We did it accompanied by the school's Erasmus coordinator, who was with us the whole day.
Our Job Shadowing diary ends here, but will continue with the next experiences planned for this school year 2023-2024.
