Volcanoes...strictly for school use!

They are kids and they come up with ideas! All the time! The idea that had settled itself in their minds at that period was to make volcanoes!
They weren't interested in seeing images and videos, the point was that they saw the red lava flowing in front of their eyes!
The day when a student brought from home his mum's...cooking tray to build in it his own volcano, I realised that it couldn't wait any longer...
Venture "Volcano" so begins...

What we needed:

A bottle of orange juice (which was our "volcano") and clay to build its slopes as life-like as possible!

...science time had come...

We put some cooking soda, some water and a little washing-up liquid in a small funnel and into the volcano...but nothing happened!

Something is needed to make the soda foam to create our lava!

What would that be?

Vinegar (with a few drops of red ink to make our lava red)!

...and the result was something like this:

 

This was one of the two volcanoes that was made by the 5th
grade students (school year 2009-2010)

Original post by Maria Priniotaki

Does school kill creativity?

When we talk about "school", we do not only mean OUR school, but the educational process in general and how it is approached by all those who are involved in it: the state, the teachers, the parents, the kids and the society.

Ken Robinson is a famous British author and speaker, and has been a University professor of Art in Education. He has also served in higher administrative positions and as a counselor in Universities and sectors concerning Education and research... He has also been awarded the honourable title of "Sir" from the Queen of England herself!

But all of the above are of not much interest to us... The reason why we admire him is that he is a tireless "worker" of education, a real visionary, who dreams and talks of a school that will be provising equal opportunities to everyone, a school that will be able to spot the strengths and talents of every child and develop them, without focusing or stopping on the weaknesses of each one of them. A school that will recognise the so-called "multiple intellegences".

But what does this mean? Intelligence is not only our ability to learn and recall information, or our capacity to solve mathematical problems! There are 8 (!) different forms of intelligence recognised today:
the linguistic intelligence (that is, the ability to handle the language with ease and effectiveness), the logical-mathematical intelligence (having a talent for Maths and solving logic problem), the musical intelligence, the visual-spatial intelligence (how well someone can "calculate" the space where they are, move around it and modulate it) , the bodily-kinaesthetic intelligence (athletes and dancers, for example have a very high bodily-kinaesthetic intelligence) the naturalist intelligence (being sensitive to ecology and the environment, feeling in balance with nature, etc.) the interpersonal intelligence (the ability toy understand other people's feelings, even if we are not explicitly informed about them) and the intrapersonal intelligence (being self-aware and being able to influence other people). The two last forms (the interpersonal and the intrapersonal intelligences) are are included in the wider sense of "emotional intelligence".
It is practically impossible, therefore, for someone NOT to belong to one of the above categories.

It is worth watching the following lecture (even though it's quite long) to see how, although times are hard and potentialities restricted, there are still people who believe that we CAN change education...

 

The Tree of Education

I don't know if we should post older projects or, maybe, if we should put our efforts into filling our websail with new ones! Since it is still so early in the schoolyear, and we are still at the planning and organising stageand since the older ones are made from kids for kids, framed with love, we believe that they can  constitute the driving force for the future activities...

"The Tree of Education", inspired by Action Aid's Global Week for Education "The Big Read" was made by the pupils of the 4th Grade (2008-2009).

Education is a "living" organism, a "tree" that needs strong roots and a strong trunk to bear fruit; it also needs our love and care to be protected by aspiring "saws" which want to hurt it...

A window to the...universe!

A picture of the 4th grade students (2008-2009), under the guidance of Mrs. Maria. I'm posting it because this is how I imagine our blog-a window to the universe...

Original post by Dimitris Alexakis

The Refugee Homes of Tsesmes

Our school is located a few kilometres to the east of Rethymno. Refugees from Minor Asia settled in this area in 1922 and gave the place the name of their homeland in Minor Asia: "Tsesmes". The word "Tsesmes" is Turkish and means "source". Some refugee homes still stand in the area, as a live memory of our students' families' history.

Original post by Dimitris Alexakis