Wellness from Finnish nature: fresh air, berries (you are allowed to pick the berries, even you  don´t own the forest), a memory game and walking with snowshoes. And also tasting some foreign vegetables at the salad bar. 

In Portugal, São João da Madeira, EB1JI do Parrinho, we had the pleasure of welcoming Doctor Sara Santos, who is the mother of two students who attend our school and is also a dentist.

Sara told us about the importance of brushing teeth and flossing.

Also, we learned that toothbrushes can be recycled and transformed into different objects. We joined a campaign that makes surfboards for adapted surf using recycled toothbrushes.

Does this campaign also exist in your countries?

In our joint activities, mobilities are important, but also the activities planned for implementation included in the timetable are of great importance. We carry out these activities locally, everyone in their school, and then share the results. Specific activities related to the subject of our project were planned for each month, but of course, during the project implementation, we adapted their implementation to the conditions and possibilities. For example, our plans were completely thwarted by covid, as well as the introduction of online lessons in schools (but more on that in another post).

So, take look at our timetable …

September 2019

Familiarizing the school community with the project. The students make a film about themselves, the school. Getting to know students from partner schools. Project corners in schools – information about the project and partner schools. Survey on daily activities, exercises and fitness: presenting results in the form of graphs and diagrams.

Competition for the logo of the project – proposals from each partner school, the logo of the project will be selected through online voting (eg tricider).

Starting the actions which will be run during the project:

Active break – the first break – exercises with accompanying music, conducted by students (there can be more acitve breaks during the school day).

Break with the fruit – each student eats the fruit.

Break with juice from freshly squeezed fruit prepared at school.

Walk in different weather conditions – walks around the area, encourage children to walk in different weather conditions.

October 2019

Task for students – students write down everything they eat during the whole day. Teachers observe students what they eat at school. After a week, analyzing the records and observations of teachers, the students share their comments, discuss with the teacher, with other students, how we evaluate their eating habits.

Meeting with a nutritionist for students and teachers. Meeting with a nutritionist for parents.

Workshops with children “Pyramid of healthy eating”. Making a pyramid of healthy eating using previously brought packaging of food products or preparing posters.

Settlement of the competition for the logo of the project.

November 2019

Analyzing the assortment of a tuck shop, if it is in school, for healthy food. Providing a shop with healthy products.

Why breakfast is the most important meal of the day. Healthy breakfast; students prepare recipes for healthy and nutritious breakfasts, take photos, translate recipes into English. Students create a multimedia presentation with all the collected recipes (students learn and try different programs to create presentations as an alternative to the popular power point, for example, prezi, focusky, vuvox, capzles, mybrainshark).

Creating a pyramid of physical activity and movement – posters.

December 2019

Homemade, traditional recipes for Christmas dishes in our countries. How can I actively spend Christmas – student proposals posted on the project’s twinspace using the Padlet or Pinerest app.

Finding out fairy tales, poems, myths or traditional stories from each country concerning nutrition. These stories could be acted by puppets made and held by students or they can be the core of short theatrical plays.

January 2020

Sweets – to eat or not to eat? Workshops for students organized by class teachers. Can sweets be healthy? An alternative to sweets. Students create an information brochure containing information they collect. Students create a comic book, whose main character is addicted to eating sweets using, for example, applications such as pixton.

Creating carnival masks decorated with fruit and vegetables.

As winter, spend time outdoors. A trip to the ice rink or other winter fun on the snow. We make a snowman – a competition for the biggest, prettiest snowman.

February 2020

Meeting with a dentist. How the diet affects our teeth. How to properly care for your teeth. Choosing the right brush and paste. After the meeting, students prepare virtual posters using the Canva or Clogster application. School competition for the best poster.

The action “I brush my teeth after every meal”. Whenever possible, the organization of brushing teeth in kindergarten / school.

March 2020

Culinary workshop of our traditional, national dishes, carried out by experienced local housewives. Report from the workshops in the form of a presentation using, for example, Animoto.

Dietary habits in our countries, our national cuisines, typical dishes, recipes, culinary traditions (photos, drawings, descriptions in the form of a virtual book or presentation).

April 2020

How to behave at the table. Behavior at the table, the culture of eating, how to properly set the table and how to decorate it nicely, how to properly use the cutlery. We put napkins – napkin origami, table decorations made of napkins. Talks and workshops at school. Pupils take pictures of their tables at home, this can be done during Easter.

Sports disciplines in the past and today; ancient sports disciplines and their continuation to the present.

May 2020

Spring vegetables grown in our gardens, typical of partner countries. Younger children make plasticine vegetables. Figures and pictures of vegetables with descriptions, students prepare a multimedia presentation in a selected program or movie. We set up a school vegetable or vegetable and fruit garden (according to the school’s option). Pupils set up and run a garden with the help of teachers and school staff. Photographs documenting particular phases – garden planting, observation of growing plants, harvesting crops throughout the duration of the project.

Visiting a nearest factory of food (if there is one near). Report on the visit in the form of an article to the website written by students.

June 2020

Summary of the first year of the project. Festivities for the school and local community. Presentation of students’ work carried out throughout the year of the project. A film or presentation showing the entire community activities that took place throughout the year of the project. A stand with healthy food. Sports competitions for students and their families. A presentation prepared by students related thematically to healthy eating and a healthy lifestyle.

September 2020

Presentation with photos of healthy, interesting, delicious meals, taken by the students during the holidays with descriptions.

Meeting with an athlete (if possible, if not with PE teacher). Athletes’ diets. Threats resulting from the use of various nutrients, supplements in sport.

Rational food planning. The water is healthy. Why physical activity is so important in a person’s life. How to spend free time outdoors. During classes with class teachers, students in groups prepare posters. Hanging posters on school corridors. A movie with photos of posters.

October 2020

Autumn harvest – gifts of autumn; exhibition at school; artworks prepared by younger children, recipes for dishes from autumn fruits and vegetables. Roast potato celebration – healthy potato dishes – we prepare them at school, then a joint meal in the open air.

Making a video game (using scratch) with a young boy/girl getting fatter or slimmer after getting wrong/right kind of food.

November 2020

Healing properties of various food products. Searching for information, organizing them. Creating a virtual catalog of such products with descriptions and photos.

Herbs and their importance in preparing dishes. If possible, organize a meeting with an herbalist who will tell you how to collect herbs, how to grow them, how to use them. If not, searching for information on the internet, but also students can ask their mothers,  grandmothers, neighbors what they know about it.

December 2020

Meeting with a dietitian. How to read labels from food packaging. How to calculate the correct body weight. How to adjust the number of calories. How to count calories. How to properly arrange meals and their amount during the day. The students write a report on the meeting with the dietitian, the best will be published as an article on the school’s school website.

January 2021

Carnival madness – we collect recipes for carnival sweets from our countries. Each country draws a recipe from another country, so that at each school prepared sweets from another country, at the school baking workshops, cookies from partner countries.

The motto of this month: I eat sweets with moderation.

Learning local dances from our countries and partner countries – dancing as a form of physical activity.

February 2021
Workshops for children – different styles of nutrition, characteristics. What does it mean to be on a diet? What does it mean to use a specific diet? Who is a vegetarian / vegan?

My favorite dishes. Children give recipes for their favorite dishes.

How to behave in a restaurant? Playing scenes, writing dialogues, also in English.

March 2021

Students write a story in their mother tongue. “Once upon a time there was a girl who was a poor eater…”. Based on their story, students create a virtual book using, for example, Flip Book Maker or Storybird.

Fasting as a manifestation of religiosity in our countries, but also a way to purify and detoxify the body.

April 2021
Easter menu in our countries. Students prepare multimedia presentations.

A trip to a nearby store. We are looking for healthy products on the shelves. Indication of products that should be avoided. Buying several healthy products needed to make healthy sandwiches, making sandwiches at school. At the end of the project, re-conduct a survey on daily activities, exercises and physical fitness, and present the results in the form of diagrams and diagrams and a comparison with the survey conducted at the beginning of the project.

May 2021

Nice, tasteful serving of meals. What is important is what we eat, but also how we eat, how we serve food. How can we place dishes on a plate in an interesting and tasteful way? We watch movies and photos on the internet. Pupils at home help parents during meals, they take pictures of interesting dishes. Competition for the best photo.

Eat healthy and colorful – recipes for healthy salads. Workshops for making healthy salads.

Menu in my private restaurant. Students arrange the menu in English. They design a menu card. The competition on the most interesting menu, also in terms of aesthetics and graphics. Younger children can only draw and sign dishes.

June 2021

Festivities for the school and local community. Summary of the 2 years of the project. Presentation of students’ work carried out throughout the year of the project. A film or presentation showing the entire community activities that took place throughout the year of the project. Stands of partner countries with dishes from a given country. Outdoor games and fun. Art performances of children related to the subject of a healthy lifestyle.

We are a group of teachers from 6 partner countries who have decided to jointly implement the projec of European Union program Erasmus + KA 229. The title of the project is “Taste of life” and it is a project on developing key competences and promoting healthy eating, healthy and active lifestyle and preventing obesity among children. The project is attended by schools from 6 countries: Poland (project coordinator), Spain, Portugal, Greece, Italy and Finland. Participants are students aged 3 – 14 and teachers of kindergarten and primary school. We also assumed participation in the project the students’ parents, members of the local community, local press, representatives of the local government and employees of regional organizations.

Our main goals are: European intercultural dialogue, shaping attitudes of respect, tolerance and openness towards other nationalities and cultures, promoting healthy nutrition and active lifestyle, developing key competences, increasing students’ motivation to learn foreign languages, encouraging overcoming language barriers by enabling contact with peers from different parts of Europe. We know how important it is to shape key competences in a modern school because a young person needs them for self-fulfillment and personal development, being an active citizen, social integration and employment in the future. All key competences are considered equally important because each of them can contribute to a successful life in modern society. Competences in school are shaped not only by what we teach, but above all, how we teach and, above all, teachers’ awareness of their role in the teaching-learning process.

Therefore, a very important element of the project was joint training, during which we have learnt how to shape students’ key competences, how to develop new methods of work developing key competences and interesting ICT tools that will become international teaching aids.

The assumed goals are achieved through the exchange of experiences between teachers, including: getting to know their workshops, educational systems, joint search for innovative work methods and ways to implement them, as well as preparing methodological and teaching support based on ICT.

An important element of our project is the promotion of healthy nutrition, a healthy, active lifestyle and the prevention of obesity among children. Incorrect nutrition of children results in growth and development disorders, overweight or obesity, and in adulthood an increased risk of many diseases.

Being aware of that, we want to counteract it and we are convinced that our project will contribute to this because we have planned a number of activities and tasks for students related to this subject, which we have included in the schedule. We want to shape our students so that they grow into young healthy people, leading a healthy and active lifestyle and equipped with key competences that will allow them to constantly develop and to shape their lives in a conscious way.

Students have the opportunity to gain new experiences, develop their skills, broaden their horizons, take care of their health. The priority for us is the constant cooperation of students during the implementation of tasks, exchange of ideas, presentation of the results. Students’ mobilities are very important, during which they share impressions of cooperation, results of work, compare ways of implementation, work together on tasks. It also have a positive impact on peer relations and school atmosphere. For many students, this may be the only opportunity to meet peers from other countries on a personal level, learn about their culture, talk in English, and explore their place of living. The communication in the project is in English, thanks to which students will improve their ability to use English in speech and writing, which is one of our priorities in this project.

The result of our work will be a methodical publication containing lesson plans, scenarios and tips on how to develop children’s key competences in kindergarten and primary school, what methods to use to strengthen and develop key competences, how to skillfully use ICT tools. Assumptions contained therein will be implemented in partner schools also after the end of the project. The result of our work will also be a book with recipes for various healthy dishes that also includes tips for healthy eating and an active lifestyle, we are also going to make a video summarizing all activities.

Participation in the project is a chance for our teachers and pupils to develop, get to know interesting places, people, for European cultural integration and improve English language skills, ICT skills and develop key competences. This will contribute to improving the quality of work of participating schools and strengthening students’ motivation for further education. We are convinced that thanks to our project, students will also deepen understanding of the importance of their place in the culture, traditions and customs of their nation and its place in the wider culture of the European community.

Which one will be the Taste of Life logo?

That from Portugal?…

…Or that from Greece?

…Or those from Italy?

…Or that from Spain?

…That from Poland?

…This is the aim of our european partnership about the healthy food and lifestyle.

Many countries under one flag and a shared logo…Poland, Italy, Spain, Portugal, Finland and Greece…one for all, all for one.

Sunday the 22nd of September Urbisaglia in the Marche region – Italy hosted a very interesting and enjoyable event about traditional and healthy food.

The healthy food corner in the Bellesi greenhouse

Agra Mater bed & breakfast presented the yeast bread