Tuesday, December 7, 2010

Chimney Roses

We made chimney roses from old carton egg boxes and half - burnet candles. They could be given to your friends as Christmas presents for litting fire. Making them is really funny and relaxing.
Just have some time and follow.

Wednesday, November 17, 2010

Welcome to Spain in February 2011

Hi you lot, we are very proud of having you as our guests in Spain next february. We hope we can treat you all as well as we have been treated here, and you enjoy our country as much as we have enjoyed Estonia.

The Spanish team.

Comenius broadens the mind

Having joined the Comenius project, our school was responsible for hosting guests from five different countries – we had young people from Spain, Portugal, Italy, Romania and Turkey. It was all very interesting while they were here, because it demanded a great deal of responsibility from us, it made us more self-confident, also it was a breath of fresh air  in our everyday life, and what is most important – it gave us a lot new friends.

Why did they come here? In addition to raising awareness about the environment, the two-year project called Immediate Surroundings also gives the students a chance to meet new people, practice their language skills and find out more about other cultures. For this reason, during these two years trips will be organized to all the above-mentioned countries. All participants in the project in our school (there are around 30 of them) will not go on every trip – the students are divided between the trips. Visiting Estonia was the first trip in the project. We took our guests to beautiful places, showed them the nature and culture of Estonia, and the life in our little hometown Tapa.

The students from abroad began to arrive on October 16th and 17th. While some of them were yet to come, those who had already arrived stayed in a hotel in Tallinn. The last guests arrived on Monday evening, October 18th. On Monday morning four or five of us went to Tallinn to welcome them and so our program started. The excursion in Tallinn included a bicycle trip through the town. Because the subject of the project is environmental awareness, we drove through the district of old factory buildings. Of course we also walked in the Old Town and enjoyed the views of the town.

In the evening we came to Tapa where the hosting families were waiting for the guests – about a half of the children involved in the project hosted someone in their home. Although it was rainy, the welcome was cordial and everyone became friends easily.

The next day, after spending some classes together with the guests and introducing the foreign partners to the whole school, we went to Lehtse school and then to Albu school. These two places are connected because they are both manor schools and part of our project also deals with economic renovation. After visiting Albu manor school we went to the museum of Tammsaare, one of the best known writers in Estonia, where we had a thorough tour.

We started Wednesday with hiking in Viru bog, which is an impressive example of the unique nature of Estonia. After that we spent some time in Sagadi manor where we also had an interesting program.


On Thursday our teachers held workshops where students had a chance to make something for themselves as a souvenir.

In the evening our traditional Playbox took place and youngsters had fun watching this because all performances of our classes were excellent.

In the evening there was also a banquet for all the parents of the hosting students, all pupils, guests and teachers who had taken part of the project. Everybody was thanked – the school board, people who had helped us arrange all this and of course those who had taken on themselves the tiresome but very special task to host a foreigner. After the banquet all students were invited to come to our school disco.

In the next morning we accompanied the guests to the train station to leave for Tallinn. As we had assumed, saying goodbye was emotional for everyone. Really, the week passed quickly and leaving new friends was hard because they live so far away. Now we can of course communicate over the Internet but it is not the same thing. These students also became close with their host families. In some cases there was of course a small language barrier which was compensated with generosity and warm smiles. Some children were older, some were younger (ranging from age 14 to 18) and older students were more experienced in the English language, but this week was very good for everybody’s skills in speaking English.

Children really liked it here, they did not want to leave so soon. Now we just have to accomplish our new errands and tasks in the project and we hope very-very much that on our trips in the future we’ll meet these friendly young people again. We will be waiting for them here too – with warm hearts in this cold land.

Mai-Liis Volmar
Anna Kivisild

More photos about this event.

Wednesday, October 13, 2010

Only one week left

We´ve already had several meetings. This Thursday we spent few hours to draw posters for our guests. We formed groups and each one of them wrote a greeting-message in the language of the country they had chosen. So we have beautiful posters with drawings that really express the cultures and peciularity of the specific countrys. So we have posters for the guests from six places: Turkey, Portugal, Spain, Italy, Romania and Estonia.


On this meeting we also decided who´s gonna drive to Tallinn on Monday 18th when our last guests arrive to the airport. We´ll meet them right there and then go through a little trip in Tallinn. It´s a suprise, so I won´t tell you what it is but it is going to be great.
So, we have only one regular meeting left before our guests arrive. We are so excited!

Mai-Liis Volmar

Monday, October 11, 2010

Nailing Down the Program!

The last meeting on Thursday saw even more students eager to participate in the project. There’s quite a lot of us now but this only means more interesting ideas and thoughts.

In just three weeks we are having one of the best parts of the project. Students and teachers from our partner schools are visiting us for a couple of days. We have arranged for various events and activities to acquaint them a little with our town and the neighbouring area as well as ourselves and our customs and traditions. Most of our guests will arrive on Monday so the program will begin on Tuesday morning. After some lessons with our guests we will have a welcoming ceremony for our partner schools. Later on we’ll visit schools in Lehtse and Albu. To give our guests an idea of our cultural history and literature we will also visit Tammsaare Museum.

On Wednesday we will go on a trip in Lahemaa National Park, which is a beautiful example of Estonian nature and visit Sagadi Manor. Thursday will be fun too. In the morning we’ll have different workshops and in the afternoon our guests can take part in our school’s traditional Playbox. After that the guests and all participants and their parents are asked on a banquet. Later in the evening there will be a school disco. During these few days we will also have a chance to just chill out and socialize. All this seems very promising!

We discussed a little which building to choose for green renovation but didn’t decide on anything just yet, though we had some good ideas. We’ll take some more time to think since there’s enough time for that.

Students who are accommodating the guests here have been informed about who will stay with whom. At first there were some misunderstandings with some names that didn’t give any clue about the sex of the person but in the end we managed everything just fine. So, accommodation is arranged and now we just have to do our best to get all the preparations done before the guests arrive and hope that everything will go as planned. The most important thing is that we would all get along well.

Mai-Liis Volmar
Translate by Anna Kivisild
The Adventure Begins...

I was rushing up the stairs in school one rainy morning when I was stopped by our English teacher Mrs Rita Püümann who inquired about my writing skills. Since I’m already a high school student I grinned and was about to make some silly comment on her question when I saw another teacher approaching, the one to whose class I was nine minutes late. The teachers went their way and Mrs Püümann told me to come by her classroom later.

A couple of days later I found myself in the Media Class where I was assigned the role of the reporter of the Comenius Project. The room was full of students, even some teachers had come. I was surprised to hear about the project, its basis, undertakings and outcomes. The co-ordinator of the project gave good reasons why participate in this project. There is hardly anyone who would not benefit from the opportunity to broaden the mind, getting to know different cultures, group work, and developing language skills. Wouldn’t it be nice to visit exotic countries such as Spain, Portugal, Turkey or Romania? Through this project we get to visit the partner schools in other countries and have them visit us, which helps to build friendships, gives us new opportunities and challenges.

At the moment we are doing preparations such as designing the logo and starting a nature club. Green thinking is one of the key words of the project. In March next year we will attempt to launch a recycling system within our school and organize various events to raise environmental awareness. In April we are planning on showing an English language play (arranged by Mrs Elle Paju) in our partner schools via Skype. It will probably be an environment related play. In May our goal will be producing a conceptual design for renovating a building in Tapa according to green thinking. We will also have an exhibition of the items made throughout the project in May. If everything goes as planned, in February we will go to Spain, in May to Portugal and in September to Romania and other places.

At the end of this term we are expecting guests from our partner schools to visit us. We are looking forward to hosting them.

Maryliis Teinfeldt
Translate by Anna Kivisild


Here is video about Estonian Team