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My World, Your World,Our World!

Comenius News 6

March 2012

Hog vagy fromHungary

The Ney Ferenc Kindergarten had the great privilege tohost the delegations of the ’My world, your world, ourworld’ Mobility 5 Comenius Schools Partnership Projectfrom England, France, Spain and Sweden from 18thMarch to 21st March 2012. On Monday, we invited theparticipants to the ’Nyitnikék’ Folk Dance and Folk SongsFestival at the Ney Ferenc Kindergarten. The guestslistened to the songs, watched the children’s dancing, andlearnt about the Hungarian national costumes. After themorning programme, we sat down and discussed whyteaching music, singing and national traditions at an earlyage is such an important task in our kindergarteneducation. On Tuesday morning, the guests were involvedin the regular program of the kindergarten. They couldwork together with the children in their groups, could takepart in games, could teach and learn songs and nurseryrhymes. Afterwards, we exchanged the albums, we gavepresents to each other in the garden where the childrenwere also present. This meeting was a really goodopportunity for the teachers’ professional development, asall the colleagues could get some good ideas about thedifferent educational styles in other countries and

institutions, the guests could also learn about ourcurriculum and daily programs.

Thank you to Ibolya, Judit and the Hungarianteam for a wonderfully organised trip toHungary! The itinerary enabled the team, MrsBarrass, Mrs Brailsford, Mrs Pitman and MrsWood to learn lots about Hungarian culture,for example dance music and food. TheHungarians are a proud nation and this wasdemonstrated through the children' dancing atthe spring folk festival where individuals sangSolos, played instruments and danced in frontof their friends and teachers. The children atthe nursery school are taught in mixed agegroups from three to seven years and it wasinteresting to witness the older onessupporting the younger ones. Children are ableto listen and engage in lessons and then leaveto join another activity when they feel theyhave had enough. There are no end of year orphase academic expectations and this meansthat the school can focus purely on teachingpersonal and social skills - children don' tencounter any teaching of reading or writinguntil the age of seven when teaching thenbecomes very formal. Thank you once againfor a trip which gave the team plenty of timeto interact with our partners from Spain,France, Sweden and Hungary and providingthe much needed translation that helped tomake this trip so successful. We have lots of

food for thought and some veryinteresting photos to share!!!!!!

What next?

For the final piece of the jig-saw, pupils will research/collate information/materials about national religious/culturalfestivals in their country – photos of this work in progress will be added to the album.Pupils will select one Nationalfestival and produce posters to advertise the festival – photos of these posters will be added to the book. A DVD

will be produced of children singing a National song, e.g. the anthem, a popular song, a festival song/s - the DVDwill be added to the album and brought to the final meeting in England on May 2nd!

Thank you and BRAVO to the Hungarian team!The welcome was wonderful and we shared

unforgettable moments. We were very impressed with thechildren's motivation and level of concentration. We becamethe jury of a folk music and dance festival; it showed us howimportant the music is in Hungary, especially in earlyeducation. It encourages learning and makes children moreconfident.On Tuesday, delegations split into three groups andwent in different classes, so that we could see young childrenlearning. In each class, there were mixed ages and abilities.Children worked together in groups, and they could choosetheir own activities; we found them very quiet and friendly.We spent wonderful days with lovely people; with Hungarianpeople, and with our Comenius friends. We talked a lot,laughed a lot, and ate a lot. We spent plenty of good timeand we enjoyed meeting so many different kinds of people.On Tuesday evening, we met students' families for an enjoya-ble evening! THANK YOU VERY MUCH!We admired the Hun-garian welcome and organisation. Even the sun was there!

We found a lot of things to learn from each Comeniusteam, and from the Comenius' experience.

Hola from Spain!The meeting in Hungary was quite a surprise for

all of us from beginning to end; such beautiful cities,landscapes and weather. Eger is an enchanting townwhere we had a “magical” stay. Thank you so much tothe Hungarian team for the effort they made welcomingall of us in such a beautiful place and at school. The ex-perience for Spanish teachers was awesome, such differ-ent schools (ours is huge compared to the Kindergarten inEger). We loved the building, the classrooms, the play-ground, they way children are organised to enjoy all les-sons, the timetable, the materials, the relationship withfamilies…etc. It’s been a great time to learn while sharingthe experience with all partner schools’ teachers.We had the opportunity to attend a Folk festival atschool where other kindergartens participated. Our stu-dents now can learn about costumes, songs and dancesfrom Hungary and Hungarian children will be the bestteachers for them (we took lots of pictures and record-

ed some of the groups).Thank you Ibolya andJudit, for taking care of us all the time.

Thank you for the wonderful days we hadtogether with the other participants in theproject. Thanks also to the children, staff andparents. Special thanks to Ibolya and Judit whowere hostesses during our stay.We were allowed to participate to Eger’spreschools great song and dance competition,which was very entertaining. It was very nice tosee all the children in their national costumes. Wefeel that the children showed courage and greatjoy when they appeared in the competition.For us, in Sweden, it was interesting to see thechildren’s learning environment and thesimilarities and differences between ourPreschool and the nursery.The deputy Mayor of Eger shared with us Eger’sfascinating history and we got to see thebeautiful hall.We took part in Hungarian culture in manypleasant ways, such as the good food, dancing(which we also participated in) and the bath in

their hot spring water.

Childrendoing theirexercises inclass - canyou pick up

a tissuewith your

toes?

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