Best holiday greetings to everybody!

Seasonal greetings from Archimedes

Summing up the 2nd term

The 2nd term has ended and we are heading for a 2-week' Christmas holiday. Today all school gathered together to sum up the 2nd term and we also had a look at what was done regarding our project. Students and teachers with most contribution got a diploma and a little prize. 

Our updated notice board

Greeting cards from Turkey

Today we received Christmas and New Year greeting cards from Turkey. Their English teacher Nesibe Gigek and kindergarten had included their cards. Many thanks for such surprise!

Christams picnic

Our Comenius team will go to Tarsi farm to have an outdoor Christmas picnic. We will depart from the school at 3.30pm. Everybody is asked to take a torch or a lantern with you. Our plan is to have a walk in the bog with lanterns (sounds extreme!), make a bonfire, fry sausages, drink Christmas glöggy* and play games.

We will continue meeting every Thursday next year in January. Seasonal greetings to everybody!

* spiced hot juice with dried berries and nuts

Katre's Quiz

Our new quiz started today. Teacher Katre provided 10 questions and students (and why not teachers) have time till 21st December to hand inor send  the answers.

Katre quiz

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14-18 March in Ferrol

Although March seems to be far in the early spring, it is not early to book the tickets for this trip. We have agreed that the project meeting in Ferrol will be attended by:

Teachers 1) Meeli Jänes, 2) Katre Luik, 3) Raigo Loide

Students 1) Regina Schults, 2) Diana Slõsenkova, 3) Signe Sammel, 4) Gerda Pilk

Ititinery

14.03.12 Tallinn (12:25) - London Stansted (13:25) Ryanair Airlines

Luton (departing 14.45) - Heathrow Airport (15.50) by National Express coach

Heathrow (17:15) - La Coruna (20:20) Vuerling Airlines

Return

18.03.12 La Coruna (15:05) - London Heathrow (16:10) Vueling Airlines

Heathrow - London Euston by underground

2-3 hours free time in London

Gloucester Place (20:30 or 21:00) - Luton (21:10 või 21:40) by Easybus/Terranova

Staying at Holiday Inn Express Luton Airport. Breakfast included. The hotel is right by the airport terminal.
19.03.12 Luton (7:45) - Tallinn (12:20)

Transfer from Tallinn to Kehtna

Evelyn Kurg

Water questionnaire

Water questionnaire

Today we continued creating water dictionary-glossary, but first we watched a  video about lighthouses in Galicia. Signe, Regina, Anu, Gerda, Larsen, Johannes, Kenet, Marten, Sten and Kaarel  managed to translate all 25 questions with multiple answers into English. Students had brought handmade Christmas cards. Some of them we will send to our partner schools. Thank you all for your contribution. 

We also discussed what to do in December. According to our today's plan we will go to Tarsi farm. We will try to have a little walk with torches, drink gloggy in the viewing tower and have BBQ later in the evening. More information next week.

Bottled water

Already a few weeks students have had a chance to drink quality bottled water (as it is not recommended to drink tab water at our school too often). The water stand was provided by school board without the initiative from Comenius team although we had planned to get it by spring. However we will continue working on  to get water onto our lunch tables. 

First fish photos

Today form 6 student Rain Laanemets sent 3 fish photos to compete with the other water-themed photos.

First snow

It snowed little bit at Kehtna this Monday around 10am. Relatively warm late autumn weather melted it  quickly.

An article in the local newspaper

You can have a look at the article about Comenius project in the local newspaper Valla Vaatleja.

Photos of clouds

The youngest in our school, form 1 students took photos of clouds. Teacher Katre gathered the photo-files together and in our Comenius meeting we gave points to each of them to select out the most favourite ones. The top three are these.

1. place: Sten-Oskar Meister

2. place: Markus Habo

3. place: Iris Kaljura

Many thanks to all the other participants as well:
Adele Zubov
Dominik Ian Morozov
Sander Lillmann
Tanel Glük
Enely Kangrumägi
Kenert Markus Linder
Karolina Schults
Rasmus Reispass
and  to their parents and teacher Katre.

Weekly meeting

At the beginning of our meeting we gave a glimpse at  the activities our partner schools have organized. We noticed that French have created nice logos, Spanish surprised us with their "Famous people" contest and we found the drawings at Turkish blog being beautiful.

Today we continued creating the water-dictionary. Teacher Meeli introduced us a method to define things by using key words. As the project activities are aimed to make us learn new things, we used world maps and Internet. Diana, Signe, Anu, Maarja-Liisi, Johannese, Gladise, Keneti, Hans-Martty and teachers Raigo and Edda managed to define quite a lot of words. 

Kaarel-Eerik, Sten and Marten were assisted by teacher Katre to study the water sample taken from the local water reservoir.

Students also gave feedback about our last trip to Tallinn. Such positive feedback makes us organize another social event in December. Teacher Raigo and Meeli will help to create another contest for all students. This time on the topic of geography and history in our partner countries. Of course questions will  be concerning  water.

Excursion to Kiek in de Kök

Kiek in de Kok - free slideshow maker

Water dictionary

 Today following students attended the meeting: Signe, Diana, Anu, Evita, Gladis, Liisbet, Johannes, Larsen, Hans-Martty, Kenet, Marten, Sten and Kaarel-Eerik, teachers Meeli, Katre, Raigo and Evelyn were supporting them.

 

First we watched three different videos. Water is very important and useful, but it can also be dangerous or frightening. We could see it from Storm video, recommended by Spanish project leader Miguel. Then we viewed a  video about Turkey's capital Istanbul, recommended by Turkey's leader Gazi and one about Spanish town Ferrol. 

Next we became the members of a jury to select the best cloud-photos taken by the youngest students in our school. More about the results in the nearest future.

Hans-Martty, Kenet and Sten rearranged our information board in the hall. We try to add more water-photo printouts  soon.

We started creating water dictionary. In several groups students had a brainstorm and suggested different words which are more or less related to water. Then they tried to define them. We shall continue next Thursday.

Tomorrow we are going on an excursion to Tallinn.

This Thursday's meeting

Four groups are creating a water-questionnaire

A bit of posing in the middle of serious discussions

The gestures tell it all! 

Our senior students working hard

Today  17 of our students and teachers Edda, Liivi, Katre, Raigo, Lea and Evelyn spent valuable 2 hours for discussing Comenius matters.

1) We talked about the planned excursion to Tallinn next Friday. Everybody leaves after 4th lesson by 12.19 train. Students will be taken to Rapla railway station by car, by teachers and parents. Our excursion starts at 3pm. We will be back by 7pm.  

2) As there are quite a many students who have joined the Comenius group, we had to discuss how to select out those who can participate in project meetings abroad. Everybody agreed that this year we need to give a priority to senior form 9 students. Students should have no major problems with grades or behaviour to be accepted on a trip. It's good to know some English, but we won't reject students with little English skills. After all such trips are meant to make us speak more and better. We try to find an agreement who is going to Spain by the end of November. Teacher Raigo and Katre will participate for sure, hopefully teacher Lea and Meeli as well. 


3) We spoke about penpals (sending paper letter by post). We can expect some letters from Spanish students and there were 15 among our students willing to start a correspondence via letters. 


4) We formed 4 groups and each group had to make questions about water consumption at homes, about families' attitudes towards water, about ways how to  consume less. Each group managed to create 8-10 questions, most of them will be used in our water-questionnaire. We shall  finish the task next Thursday. 


5) We were reminded about the photo-shooting and logo creating events at our school. The first students have already sent their water photos and some logos have been handed in too.

France´s blog

The French team has set up their project blog. You can have a look at it by clicking here.

Prizes

Names of those who were asked to step forward

On our last school day in this first term certificates and sweet prizes were given to those 14 students who took part in "Well-known people" competition and 5 boys were acknowledged for their contribution in art lessons. 

Rain - student with the best results.

Marko - one of the students who helped to draw welcome signs

Kelly - student who manged to find famous people of all 5 nationalities

Two contests

1) Till March students are asked to take water-related photos. Be creative and look around  in the nature, at school, at home. Photos should be sent either to an email address: kurg.evelyn@gmail.com or brought to school on USB memory stick. File name should contain your first and last name. Best photos will compete  together with the photos taken in our partner schools and  the best of best will be published and distributed.

2) Till March also a contest for creating a logo takes place. The logo should contain the project's name in English "Water - The Spring of Life". It can be drawn by hand or on computer. Designs of your logo should be also sent on the following email address: kurg.evelyn@gmail.com or brought to school on paper or on USB key. Please provide your first and last name.

Posters

Although this afternoon was busy both for students and teachers (end of term), Maarja-Liis, Anu, Sten, Kenet and Marten found time to attend our weekly meeting. We started at 3pm and by 5.30pm the posters were on the walls.

Pizza night

As the saying goes "First work, then fun", we gathered tonight by 6 in the evening at Kehtna Youth Club to spend some time together. Students and teachers who had been involved in hosting our Comenius project partners last week were invited to the party. Following students were present: Sten, Marten, Kenet, Evita, Gladis, Liisbet, Kristina, Jordan, Johannes, Larsen, Hans-Martti, Gerda, Regina, Diana, Signe, Aivi, Kelly and Maarja-Liis, teacher Evelyn, Edda, Katre and Raigo. Each student could bake a pizza to his/her own liking. Meanwhile we played table tennis, air hockey, listened to music, watched what was going on at Facebook and also played the concert videos. Some students wrote a hand-written letter to Turkish students. We will post the letters on Friday and hopefully it will be the beginning of a nice correspondence. We also ate a cake.

Pitsaõhtu - make slideshow

Turkey's blog

Our Turkish friends have also started to do blogging about our mutual project. You can also VIEW IT in English.

Spain's blog

Our Spanish friends have set up their blog. You can view it HERE .

Recognising famous people of five nationalities

The contest is on till this Thursday, 20th October. The present results are as following:

1. Rain Form 6 - all 5 countries
2. Kristin Form 6 - Spain, Turkey, France
3. Helen Form 6 - Turkey, France, Spain
4. Ranner Form 8B - France
5. Jaagup and Ingomar Form 9B - Spain
6. Tauri Form 7 - France, Italy, Spain
7. Karol Form 8B - Italy
8. Mikk Form 8B - Spain
9. Johannes 8B - Italy, Spain
10. Evita 8B - Spain
11. Gladis 8B - France
12. Marten Form 7 - Estonia, Spain
13. Kelly 9B - Spain, France, Turkey (Italy - 2 names missing, Estonia - 3 names missing)

The photos of well-known people can be found in 29th Sept post.

Concert video

This week's meeting

Today at 3pm we got together in teacher Meeli's classroom to view photos and videos taken last week. We agreed to draw posters next Thursday to advertise the photo-hunt and logo-creation campaign. Logo can be made either by hand or computer. Photos  should be original, not edited. Students also learned about the Facebook group. The first day made quite a lot of students join in. 
Students who were present: Anu, Diana, Kaarel, Marten, Kenet, Sten, Johannes, Larsen, Liisbet, Gladis, Evita...
Teachers: Evelyn, Meeli, Edda ja Raigo.

Let's meet again next Thursday at 3pm. 

Facebook

Dear students from Comenius-team!
We have created a group at Facebook to be used by all students interested to participate in Comenius project. You are welcome to send an invitation to join  "Water - the Spring Life Students" group. 

Videos were taken and sent by Teo Ramirez.

Photos

Thank you Teo Ramirez for taking photos!

Kizoa slideshow: Kehtna 5.-9.okt - Slideshow

Day 4

An early start for everybody as we were heading to Tallinn. The weather was sunny, but chilly, in the afternoon with showers. Our history teacher Raigo showed us around the old town. First he took us to the Upper Town called Toompea. We saw the parliament house, Dome Church with lots of coats of arms, visited viewing platforms, tasted fried almonds made by medieval recipe. Later we walked down the narrow street called Lühike Jalg (Short Leg) and visited market square with the town hall and everybody could pop in to different souvenir shops. Later we had an excursion in underground bastions and after that our bus took us to the song festival ground, drove by the seaside and through residential area which represents the Soviet architectural style or more accurately the lack of it. We also walked in the park near the presidential house which still was full of flowers. In front of the figure of Neptune/Poseidon we had a group photo taken. After checking in the hotel, we went to a medieval restaurant to attend Merchant Guild's feast. We could taste and eat lots of different things, some of them perhaps not in the most expected way. (for example an appetiser onion jam or Crusader's lentils sauce etc). We couldn't expect to have electricity in such place, so it took time to get used to the dim atmosphere. Our table master Miguel made sure everybody had enough food and drinks. :-)

Saying good-bye is always difficult to such nice group of people, but we managed to do it by knowing that it is not the end, but the beginning of our friendship.
Photo: Gazi Özdemir

Day 3

Photo: Miguel Perez

Day 3 started with project work related discussions on the raft-house. We were productive and managed to agree on several important things. It was quite windy and we had to cancel the initial plan to go canoeing in the afternoon, but we could try riding on hydro-bikes. After the meeting we were floating along the river for several kilometres and the raft-house which had an engine took us eventually to an old wool mill where a family still produces woollen string with machines older than 100 years. Then we had some free time at Rapla until it was time to have dinner in the local culture house.
To sum up - our group knows how to work hard, but also is very fun-loving and gets along with each other well which makes it just great. :-)

Welcome concert

Today we held a welcome concert to our guests from project partner schools. Classes 1 and 5 to 9 were part of the audience. Kaare-Eerik and Sten helped to host the concert. First children choir performed a song of gratitude. In the background photos of Estonian nature and seasons from autumn to spring were displayed. Our headmaster made his speech next which was followed by another song sung by the choir. It was about the summer. The Spanish told later that its tune reminded them an old spanish folk song. Nine students from form 5 danced a folk dance wearing national costumes. After that form 9 students Regina and Gerda sang a song "Farewell to summer". The counsellor of education and culture from local government made a nice speech and then it was already time to scroll up the screen and make room for faster performances. Aivi, Gerda and Regina showed a modern dance. After that perhaps the hit of the concert - form eight students did an impression of songs in the languages of our partner schools. It caused excitement among our guests, students and teachers. the myth about Estonians who are modest, curbed and lack temperament was busted.

We welcome all the students who helped to organise this concert to take part in after-party on 14th October when we can eat pizza and watch the video of the concert.

Day 1

The first hosting day has gone to an end. Our bus driver Toomas Toome took us as always on time and in good mood to Tallinn Airport. First Spanish and Italian group arrived. Their journey had been smooth, but unfortunately one luggage had gone missing. We took the arrived guests to Ülemiste shopping centre while we drove to the port to meet the Turkish. Their journey to Estonia had taken 2 days, they were tired, but otherwise it had been without problems. They had some trouble finding the port in Helsinki, so they had to take a taxi. After that we headed back to the airport to greet the Italian group. They had taken 3 different flights. We received a phone call from the airport and were told that the lost luggage was on its way to Kehtna. By 22.30 everybody was in their hostel rooms. We are waiting for another day together tomorrow.

Materials for school

Today we finished off searching for information and photos about the towns and regions of our partner schools. Photos were chosen by Form 7 students.

Schedule of our first project meeting

Schedule in English

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Contest at Kehtna Basic School

There are 10 photos of famous people from 5 countries: Estonia,Turkey,France,Italy and Spain. Can you find what are their names and what made them famous?

Kuulsused

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Famous people

Attention students, teachers and staff!

In Comenius project “Water- The Spring of Life”  we are going to learn more about four countries: – Spain, France, Italy ja Turkey.

I welcome you all to test your skills and find the last names of these famous people in the pictures. Please include what they are famous for. You can take part in this contest if you manage to find at least all 10 names of one country. 

Please bring the results to teacher Evelyn.There are prizes to be won!

You have time till 20 Oct. Wishing you success!

Teacher Evelyn

PS! All photos were taken from www.google.com, therefore using a search engine is recommended too.

Today's workshop

Students from 8B spent an hour in an English classroom searching for songs and preparing our welcome concert. Sten and Kenet were in the computer classroom and searched for information about France and Spain. Kaarel translated project's aims and activities into Estonian. Later he found more facts about Estonia and Turkey. Senior girls Signe, Diana, Kelly, Maarja-Liis, Anu, Gerda and Regina were busy with drawing, cutting, colouring - they were setting up information board. Form 7 students also searched for photos of different landscapes and landmarks in our project countries. Teachers Evelyn and Meeli were assisting the students. Teacher Edda gave us drawing supplies and paper. We started 2pm and left school at 5.20pm.

Let´s Get together!

Due to the sports day held this Thursday, let´s meet on Wednesday at 2pm (or join us after 7th lesson) in teacher Meeli´s classroom. Let´s prepare information board about the project, translate some materials, search for additional info from the Internet. Everybody from classes 7-9 is welcome, bearing in mind project work involves also after-lesson hours.

Attention students!

Our weekly project meetings will take place on Thursdays starting after the 7th lesson at 3pm. Let's meet in teacher Meeli's Biology classroom. Everybody is welcome to join in!

Today we received a little parcel from Archimedes where we found Comenius stickers, labels and posters. We will use them to make our first board on 21 Sept together with students.

Where is the Spanish school located?

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Where is the French school located?

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Where is the Italian school located?

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Where is the Turkish school located?

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First meeting

After our summer holiday we got together today with the teachers to get an overview about the main activities during next two Comenius project years. Evelyn  introduced us with the project topics so that teachers could start planning how to involve water-subject in their lessons and do cooperation. We also discussed the matters about the first project meeting.We came close with the agenda. Katre promised to check and help with organising a day at Kabala, Raigo suggested to become a guide in Tallinn oldtown. Meeli, as the most experienced of all, gave good support. Lea had ideas about the welcome concert, Liivi and Piret gave information about different sights. Veera and Kadi supported the others with their presence. We agreed to meet on 14 Sept at 3pm next. It was great to see teachers' interest and attendance. Thank you!