Last week, Kierna, Enda and Tanya headed to Zagreb for the 5th meeting of our final Erasmus Plus Project, Full STEAM Ahead. This project has partners in Iceland, Belgium, Norway, Croatia and England. Each time we visit a school we take a STEAM activity to do with the children from the host kindergarten. The kindergarten in Zagreb is one of the oldest in the city and is based on two separate sites, one huge building with the babies right up to the 7 year olds and the other smaller building has 3 classes of 3-7 year olds. This kindergarten has mixed aged groups from 3 years old and the children stay with the same teachers for the 3-4 years they are in that class. In each kindergarten class there are around 22-25 children and 1 teacher, the children were very independent and self sufficient.
We spent time looking round the classes and the bigger kindergarten before going to play outside with the children in the smaller building. On the 2nd day each partner organised some STEAM activities with the children, Enda and Tanya had brought some Skittles to show the children how to make a rainbow with the sweets and some water - it was a lot of fun and lots of sweets were eaten! The Belgian teachers had brought some Hama Beads to make spinners with, the Icelandic teachers did some Hapa Zome (where the children hammer some flowers onto material to make beautiful pictures, the Norwegians organised a potato and spoon race and the English teachers brought some rainbow math sticks to play some colour matching games with the children.
That evening each of the coordinators gave a presentation about their schools and afterwards we had some lovely food and a chance to chat to some to of the staff from Zagreb.
One the Wednesday we had a cultural day with a trip to the coast and Zadar, this was most eventful as our bus broke down half way there and we had to wait on the side of the road for the replacement bus. But we finally made it to beautiful Zadar for lunch and Tanya and some others went for a swim in the warm sea. Enda & I went for a walk around the old town with one of the Belgian teachers. We all got caught in a heavy rainstorm that evening.
On our final day we all helped prepare food for some traditional stews and build some new flower beds for the kindergarten. One of the parents is a Mitchelin star chef and he cooked for us too. The children had some toasted marshmallows and planted some new flowers and herbs in the new beds. After lunch we all got our certificates.
Our final meeting for the project will be in October in Cornwall.
Menu
