Friendship On-line

Prezentace1eweek

2010-03-13T23:23:00.001+01:00

Check out this SlideShare Presentation:

Prezentace1eweek

View more presentations from Naděžda Kadlecová.

Greek cookery book

2009-11-18T21:40:00.000+01:00

http://www.slideshare.net/kadlecova/greek-cookery-book

Cookery book from the Greek project

2009-11-18T21:38:00.000+01:00

http://www.slideshare.net/kadlecova/cookery-book

Czech-Polish project certificate of Quality

2009-03-01T12:47:00.001+01:00

Czech-Polish project Let´s /b/log in

The group of students from tercie B, who are working in the project , has applied for the certificate of Quality. Our project has come to the last part and we think we have a lot to show. During our cooperation we have created video and audio recordnings, we are working in the podcast / podomatic/ and we make Photostory recordings. / photostory 3 /

On part of the project is dedicated to the environment and we introduce our environments to each other. We both write asbout our project on the school web and we introduce this cooperation to the public.

The Polish school organizes a lot of interesting events and thanks to them we can celebrate them, too. For example the International Day of Mother Tongues, which is celebrated on 21st February. We were not at school, so we spoke about this day after the winter break.

We are working in the twinspace of the etwinning portal and we are also writing a blog, called the same name as our proejct. / http://tercieb-poland.blogspot.com/
And so day after day we can follow school life in the Czech and the Polish school. We are happy for our friends successes and we tell them about ours.

We uploaded the short photostory about the results of the graphs / teenage life style / into our school web. There is a section in activities called MEZINARODNI PROJEKTY, where we store our contributions. / http://www.gym-cl.cz/

In the pictures Tereza O. has won a prize in the magazine R+R

A week with the eTwinning

2008-10-22T21:16:00.005+02:00

On 20th October a week with the eTwinning started in the Czech Republic. There were a lot of schools involved in this event. Their task was to write a story about two little men, one is blue and one is red. They visit our towns and schools and have a lot of fun. The schools are writing the story non-stop during the day and at night. My students were at school at night from 20th to 21st October. We had a great time together.

You can see the Czech blog on this address

www.etwinning-maraton.blogspot.com

European day of languages

2008-09-28T23:20:00.001+02:00

International chat in the last minute

On 26th September, our school took part in the International chat on line on the www.etwinning.net.

The coordinator of the chat was our school and we invited several countries into our twinspace Living Traditions.

And so at 10.00 am of the Czech time there were students from the Czech Republic, Poland, Italy, Romania, Greece, Portugal and Spain.
The chat was in the twinspace of our project with Romania and all the students were very serious about it. Some of them exchanged their email addresses during the chat. We can´t give any statistics now because immediatelly after the chat the portal etwinning was closed for several days.

On 29th September www.etwinning.net will be open again in a new coat. Thank you all who took part in our chat.

Spring Day 2008 in our school

2008-06-01T21:24:00.003+02:00

Spring Day 2008 in our school

Our school takes part in the programme Spring Day every year and during the time from March to June, there are a lot of activities based on this programme. www.springday2008.net

The first event happened on 14th April when our school was visited by the students from the German partner school in Ettal. Czech students had a chance to talk to their German friends and especially for the younger students it was a good experience to practise their foreign language knowledge in real life. The students asked a lot of questions and they compared the life in our country and Germany.

The youngest children, who study English, worked on line and had to find some information about life of the children { of the same age} from various parts of the world. They used directed reading on the website http://www.cambridge.org/elt/messages/

Sekunda B worked on the project with the Slovak school in Puchov and they collected a lot of old photos from the life of their relatives. They compared the way of life now with the one forty years ago. The Slovak children did the same. The Czech children informed their parents about this activity on the teachers-parents meeting and they organized a small exhibition in the corridor of the school building. They also used the photos for a short film which has been uploaded into the competition of Spring Day 2008. http://sekunda-neighbours.blogspot.com/ This is the blog of our project.

The students from tercie A went on a trip to Greece from 5th-10th May to see their friends from the eTwinning project Music helps us live. This project won the first place in the Czech Republic and so visiting Greece was a very nice reward. The students met in the gym of Kavassila High School and they had a programme together with the Greek children. They danced together at the end of the programme and exchanged small presents. http://musichelpsuslive.blogspot.com

We had a quiz which was created by the students from Slovakia, Poland, Latvia and Lithuania. The quiz had 32 questions and 52 students from our school answered them correctly. There was a draw on 19th May and some students from the quiz got small prizes.

I am glad to say that also students from the Senior Grammar School took part in the competition of Spring Day 2008. They were inspired by the Art teacher Ms Abermannova and they took really beautiful pictures of spring nature, life of other nations in our town and our town. Some of their pieces of art were uploaded into the Spring Day competiton.{ my film}

I can also say that the student from kvarta A Helena P., who is only fifteen, won the second place in the National Competition of English conversation in Prague. It is for the second time when our small school in a small town have beaten the students from big regional schools. We are very happy for that.

The one of the last events in May was an International visit in our school. The students from the French partner school arrived and they spent free May days with our students.

It is not possible in our school which contains two grammar schools, Junior and Senior, to organize the whole day celebrations of Spring Day, but we are glad that we can take part in the activites which are ready for us on the very useful website www.springday2008.net. We are looking forward to being one of the Spring Day schools also next year.

Mgr. Nadezda Kadlecova

New blogs

2008-02-17T17:55:00.003+01:00

This school year, we have created more blogs, so you can have a look at what we are doing during our projects. The addresses are:
http://sekunda-beautifulworld.blogspot.com

this is a biology project with Poland

and http://musichelpsuslive.blogspot.com

this is a musical project with Greece

http://tercie-ireland.blogspot.com

this is a new project with Ireland

Our sponsored child from India - Mary

2008-02-13T17:34:00.003+01:00

Sekunda A is the class which have been chosen to write letters to our Indian adopted child Mary. She was born on 15th September 1996 in India in the region Karnaka and comes from a poor family. She is a Christian-catholic. We send money for her school attendance every year and so she can get clothes, school equipment, shoes, school food for that. It is very good. Last year we watched a documentary about this part of India and about the children who can´t go to school and who live in the scrapheap. We are very happy that we can support our child and we have decided to eneble her to finish her compulsory school attendance.

Mary

Powerpoint presentation of our project

2008-02-03T22:32:00.001+01:00

Trees a biology project

2008-01-29T22:58:00.000+01:00

Ceska Lipa in autumn 2007

2007-12-06T22:43:00.000+01:00

Merry Christmas and a Happy new Year

2007-12-06T22:37:00.000+01:00

Czech carol

2007-12-05T19:30:00.000+01:00

International chat in our school

2007-12-05T19:19:00.000+01:00

On 5th December, there was another international chat in our school. This time it was called St. Nicholasˇchat. We didn´t break the record from our September chat, but the students did very well.

There were the Czech Republic, Poland, Romania, Finland and Greece involved in the chat.52 students from these countries,6 teachers were working very hard for 45 minutes. They created 27 topics, most of them were connected to coming Christmas and the different traditions in our countries. The students answered 518 times and they showed their ability to be very quick at English.

I would like to thank to all of them and I hope that next time we will break the old record.

2007-11-17T00:33:00.000+01:00

Students´Day

Our Grammar school Česká Lípa, celebrated The Students´Day on 15th November. This year, it was different.Our celebration started before twelve o´clock in the school gym. Most of the students geathered there to watch a wide programme of various dances and gymnastics performances. The gymnastics group from our school has achieved a lot of national rewards. They were really very good and they received big applause.

The people, who prefer something smaller and quieter, visited the music room, where they could listen to classical music, they could hear some poetry given by the school drama group and there were also two English songs sang by the youngest students from Prima A and B. Most of the students, who have played various musical instruments, are finishing our school in May 2008, so it was the last time when we could hear them .But we believe that they will not forget about our school and come back again to play for us. Pavel Kohoutek, our former student, came , too. He played several pieces of music for us with his band. It was nice to see him again. We wish all our graduating students good luck while they are passing their school leaving exams.

After the programme in the music room,you could visit any of the 16 places on all the floors. You could play various card games, board games,chess, do the crosswords, compete in solving mathematical exercises and puzzles. There was a lot of fun but also some educational events, such as the Tenth Anniversary of the school expeditions in every July. The students could remember all those beautiful places in Europe, which they could visit during those ten years thanks to the group of dedicated teachers. These teachers do not mind their holiday time and instead of sitting at the swimming pool, they travel with more than forty students to differenet parts of Europe.

Another educational programme called Lanterna Futuri was presented in one of the classrooms. This event has become an inseparable part of our curriculum.

There are two other drama groups in our school. They are very good. One of them performed the play Butterflies / By Čapek brothers./ They will repeat this performance before Christmas again, because not many people could see them and it would be a pity not to show us this excellent piece again.

It is not allowed to play computer games in the ICT rooms. Thursday was the exception. All the computers were occupied mostly by the boys, who wanted to be American soldiers for a while in the computer game America´s Army.

Body painting had its headquarters on the fourth floor. A lot of students had to queue to have a nice picture painted on their face. And when you stepped down two floors, you could try your artistic eye, too. In the Art room, everybody could draw a picture. The topic was what or who I love. And so we could see a lot of dogs, horses, but also computers and broken hearts, there. There was one house. Wasn´t it our school? No, it wasn´t. Our school is yellow and that house was purple. But I hope that after such a successful afternoon, there will be our school building in the picture, next time.

The final event of our celebration was a volleyball match between students and teachers. And who was the winner? I can say that all of us who came to enjoy the afternoon, who were able to amuse other people and who did not leave the school too early.

There are a lot of photos in our school web which will remind us of that beautiful afternoon, when we celebrated The Students´Day. On 17th November 1989, our democracy was born. Happy birthday, freedom, happy birthday new generation

Autumn in the cottage

2007-11-12T00:17:00.000+01:00

Ocober and November in the cottage. Neverending work.

Czech Christmas

2007-11-11T23:50:00.000+01:00

This is the way how Czech people celebrate Christmas. It is one of the most beautiful times of the year.

Singing in the rain

2007-11-07T22:44:00.000+01:00

This is our contribution for our Slovak friends. The song from our coursebook. We are talking about the weather. It is raining in our country at the moment. While we were recording this song, we were so noisy that the teacher from the other class came and complained.

Summer in the cottage

2007-10-28T15:46:00.000+01:00

This is the summer in our cottage, with the grandchildren, our son and hard work again.

Our cottage in 2007

2007-10-28T15:32:00.000+01:00

This is our cottage in 2007. Months after month. it is for my friends who know about our hard work there.

We are going to Greece

2007-10-26T23:56:00.000+02:00

We are the champions

2007-10-21T22:56:00.000+02:00

We went to Prague, but we didn´t know about the prize. I took three students with me, Lenka, Veronika and Art as representatives of the class. We were welcomed in the Building of the Ministry of Education, in the mirror room. All the guests were very exited because we didn´t know about the placings.

First, we received two Quality Labels for the projects with Slovakia and with Lithuania. And then, our school was called to get the first prize, 15O,OOO Czech Crowns for visiting our partners in Greece. I couldn´t believe my ears and I was very touched to shake my hands with the representatives of the Ministry of Education and Czech NSS.

After lunch my students talked about the project, we showed a short presentation and the girls sang the Greek song.

The next day, all the students were very happy because they didn´t have to write the test from Maths. It was the reward of their maths teacher for our victory.

I am very glad that my students immediatelly started a new project called Let´s twin across the sea with an Irish school. We are very happy that we can go on with our projects.
WE ARE THE CHAMPIONS and we know that SHOW MUST GO ON.

I would like to thank to our partner school Kavasila High School because without, you, our dear friends, we wouldn´t win. Special thanks goes to Eleni Kostopoulou, who was the heart of the project and as usual she worked very hard. I am very glad that we have won not only the first prize, but I have won my best friend for life.

Victory

2007-10-17T21:26:00.000+02:00

On 18th October we are going to Prague to get the National prize for our project Music helps us live. But not only this. We will get two certificates for two more projects. One of them is called Neighbours and is with Púchov in Slovakia and the other was with Lithuania and was called New friends- new pictures of Europe.Here is the link to the new presentation

Music helps us live

2007-10-02T23:17:00.000+02:00

You can see the work on the project here. But it was rewarding.

The Greek children are singing in Czech

2007-10-02T23:08:00.000+02:00

After exchanging music, lyrics and pictures we were able to sing a Greek song and the Greek friends were able to sing one of our Czech songs. It was very nice. When we heard the song , we almost cried.

Music helps us live

2007-10-02T22:57:00.000+02:00

We have created a short video presentation which shows our way how to teach our friends a new song. That was not easy, translation, playing the song, singing, illustrating, we used different technical tools. The videos have been made by Kodac camera, because they were not so big as from a digital cine-camera

14 nightingales

2007-10-02T21:43:00.000+02:00

We got this song from our friends from Kavasila High School and the task was to learn it, to be able to sing it. The students liked the song and they say that they will remember this song for ever. Our Greek friends sang the Czech song Darmo sa ty trápíš.

European Day of languages

2007-09-27T00:01:00.000+02:00

One of the most beautiful events was a concert of Vera Klaskova, the folk singer who has been singing Irish songs for a long time.

European Day of languages

2007-09-26T23:47:00.001+02:00

On 26th September our school celebrated these two important days which are connected together. When we take place in international projects, we have to use foreign languages ,such as English, German and French.

There were a lot of events during the day for all the students, the seniors and the students from the junior grammar school , as well. Mrs Gebauerová prepared a concert for older students. They could hear beautiful Irish songs, sang by Věra Klásková, the famous folk singer. The students who study German had a chance to see a play in German, students from tercie A acted in it and the play was prepared by Mrs Hronzová.

Mr Tulka, the geography teacher, had a tricky geography quiz for the students from kvinta A about our partners´countries. The winners were Katerina Hasova, Marek Michl and Jan Zachrla.

The new students in our school met our deputy headmistress Mrs Paszeková, who showed them one of the successful projects of our school called Lanterna Futuri. They will take part in it soon, too.

But also the students of our junior grammar school had an interesting programme. The etwinning room was connected on line by the SKYPE and there were international videoconferences with Poland and Greece.

Younger students watched etwinning presentations of their older friends and some classes prepared interesting events, such as The Sovenier Exhibition in the classroom, where other children had to quess where the things had come from. Sekunda A and B created posters called My favourite European country and together with the German students and the students who study French, they did the same thing, decorated the main corridor of the school. A lot of students came to read the posters. The youngest students sang the song A message in a bottle to the Polish children during the chat.

And then a new etwinning European record came. The students from kvarta B / they are fifteen/ broke the chat record. In a one-day project called The fun never ends when you write to your friends were registered 147 students,11 teachers, from the Czech Republic, Poland, Slovakia / our partner school from Púchov /, Hungary, The UK, Finland, France and Italy. It was a problem to work in the chat, so most of the students were routed into the Forum of the twinspace. During 45 minutes there were 223 topics and 1,215 answers. Although it was a bit chaotic, the feedback is great. Everybody loved the chat and it was worth the time we had spent while preparing the whole event.
I really have to express deep thanks to our ICT teacher Mr Dufek, who had worked hard in the new computer room, so we were able to use it today.

We also received powerpoint presentations from our chat friends about their schools. It was really a good idea. And the Finish teacher uploaded photos of the chatting students into the photogallery while we were chatting. What a nice surprise!

The last event of the day was a small present for each youngest student. It was a sticker which contained a tag line of the European day of languages in a different language. The tag line is TALK TO ME. The task was to find out the name of the language in the school corridor.

Our celebration was very nice and we are looking forward to preparing the next eTwinning and European Day of languages.

Thanks to everybody, who had helped us with this successful and unforgettable day.

This is what the French teacher has written to me

My students were very enthusiasts for this chat and forum (too much for me). Some of them couldn't connect on chat or forum and I gave other solution. BUT I was so fast : they wrote fast and didn't way you write questions !!! They liked talking about football, video games (tricks)... Some of them exchanged e mail address with Polish, Italian.. students when they used private room on the chat. I never saw them use so quickly English dictionary !!!!It was great. Thank you for organizing this chat.
Love Catherine

Trutnov 2007

2007-08-24T11:52:00.000+02:00

Photos from our seminář in Trutnov 2007

http://picasaweb.google.cz/hopelesshope53/SkoleniTrutnovNadaFoto

QUALITY LABEL

2007-08-23T17:15:00.001+02:00

http://www.box.net/shared/nr4j1jys23

eTwinning projects can be a nightmare

2007-06-10T23:39:00.000+02:00

How to cope with an unsuccessful project

I have been working in the eTwinning for more than three years and I must say that not always all the projects have been good. During all those months of interesting work, our school have created about twenty projects.

What are the reasons of the problems to finish the project?

the number of the students on one side is much larger than on the other side.{ It has happened to us with Portugal this year and my students were confused each having two Portuguese children as their penfriends.} Then we preffered using the Forum where all the kids talked together.

we had a plan but we forgot about the partner’s holiday and the end of the school year.{ we had to change the plan and make the project shorter.}

the technical equipment of the schools wasn‘ t on the same level. I had to explain the children that they were lucky to go to our school and they had to accept the conditions of the other side. It was a problem because the children didn’t get as many letters as they had wished. But on the other hand I could use it educationally. My students were proud of our school ICT rooms more than before.

ICT knowledge of the partner teachers wasn’t the same. { It can often happen but then, the more experienced teacher can help the new friend.} It happened to us with Greece, but my friend from Greece was a good student and today she is just perfect. We spent a lot of chats discussing technical problems. There are seminars in all the EU countries for the teachers who are not sure what to do. Those teachers can also use the help from their local NSSs.

But the worst problem is when one of the partners finishes without saying a word. Then we have to tell the children and explain the situation. If it happens ones, it can be explained easily but if it happens more times, it is not easy to motivate the children for a new project. And so they should have feeling that their work was useful.

What to do with an unfinished project ?

If the children are registered in the twinspace in My team, we can go on with the project as if nothing has happened. We can try to find another partner who would replace the first one. { it can be a bit confusing but sometimes it is better than nothing}

If you do not find a new partner, then you still can use the twinspace. You can divide the children into two groups and they can choose the country they will represent. I know that it is not the same like with a real parner, but we need to finish the project. The students can still write letters, work in the Forum, create folders and photogalleries. They can work with the Internet and create powerpoint presentations about various details of the chosen countries. Maybe they will become interested in a new country and they will be motivated to start a new project. The only thing is that we probably will not be successful in the National or International competitions.

But what is more important? Definitely not to discourage the children from other contacts but make them happy that they had done a good job.

How to protect our partnership?

set clear conditions at the very beginning
discuss the school year holidays
be in touch regularly- it is important especially at the beginning of the project
try to get to know your partner better before you promise anything to the children
prepare the project with the children- you can help them but they should be involved as much as possible
keep the list of the students with their partners- they may forget them { it is useful to put the list in the twinspace}
keep the list of the students‘ usernames and passwords for the etwinning web page. If you do not go regularly into the twinspace, younger children might forget them.
be diplomatic when you chat or write to your partner. We are different nations and different mentalities and so we can hurt our friend unintentionally.

In conclusion

Be optimistic and believe that every new project will be better and more successful than the first one. The friendship which is offered to us during our eTwinning projects is a treasure. So do not waste it, keep it, look after it, enlarge it and you will never be alone in this world.

Culture in the Box

2007-06-10T20:05:00.001+02:00

This school year, two groups worked on the project from the webpage eTwinning Culture in the Box. My favourite class kvarta B / in the picture/ have worked with the students from Lithuania and the students from kvarta A have worked with the students from Malta.
They finished the project with powerpoint presentations about the partners´countries. The presentations are on the web pages of our school in the English section/ www.gym-cl.cz

We have finished successfully and it is a pity that those students are going to the senior high school next school year.

The Profile of our school year 2006-2007

2007-06-10T20:05:00.000+02:00

First of all, after several years of hard work my best student Karolina has become the best student in the Czech Republic in the National Competition.

This school year was very successful as usual for our projects in the eTwinning. We have received two international Quality Labels for our last school year projects Where do we come from and Let´s cross the bridge with Greece.In September, our school has won another fifty thousand crowns for the second place in the National Competition and in February 2007 we represented our school in Brussels in the International Conference of the eTwinning. Then new projects started and in April 2007 our school got the Quality Label for the project with Kavasila High School called Music helps us live.Later this project received also the Quality Label in Greece which means the third International Quality Label for our school. The students got small presents during the National Conference in Jihlava.

The students from kvarta A and B worked on similar projects Culture in the Box with different countries. They have finished their work by powerpoint presentation about the partner´s country. We received the same final product from the students from Lithuania and we hope to get one from Malta, too.

The students from prima B worked on the project with Slovakia and this project has been very good so we will go on next year.

For the next year, we have contacted several coutries and we would like to have projects with Ireland, Poland, Norway, Estonia, Greece, Slovakia and Lithuania.

I would like to thank to all the students who have worked on the projects for the excellent representation of our school, town but also our country in Europe.

The EU Day in our school

2007-05-13T00:36:00.000+02:00

The EU Day in our school

Every year in spring the EU opens a new version of the web page for schools called www.springday2007.net where schools can take part in various activities and they can learn more about history of the EU.

This year the celebration is very special because the EU celebrates the 50^th anniversary from the foundation in 1957.

The younger students from English classes took part in the celebration of the EU DAY on 9^th May. First they drew posters to the competition. We sent six contributions. 67 students from various classes worked in the computer room on 9^th May and they answered the Quiz about the EU countries. On 15^th May there will be a draw and the winners will get small presents. The questions from the quiz are published on the web page www.snahavelka.blog.cz.

The students from the youngest classes have seen the film about eTwinning in our school and also a present which we got from our partner school in Greece. The Greek students are singing in Czech one of the songs by Cechomor called Darmo sa ty trapis and they are very good at it. This song comes from our project with Greece “Music helps us live”

We discussed advantages and disadvantages of being one of the EU countries in the Forum with our project friends from Poland and Portugal. The project with these countries is called Cyber friends. The Portuguese are more experienced and they have tried to explain their friends all the good points of being in the EU.

Didactical games and the other activities are still available on the web page of The Spring Day 2007. They will be there till the end of June. There are also power point presentations in various languages about History of the EU. They are really very good.

Next week, students from sekunda B class are going to make a film about our town for our eTwinning friends in English. We would like to show them how beautiful is the place where our school is situated and that the students are able to introduce Ceska Lipa in English.

Mgr. Nada Kadlecova, Gymnazium Ceska Lipa, the Czech Republic

Thank- words for our Greek students and teachers

2007-05-12T18:24:00.000+02:00

Hello dear students and teachers in our partner school Kavasila High School.

I would like to thank you for our whole- year cooperation and we were very glad that we could work together on the project Music helps us live.

Your surpise in the form of the Czech song sang by the Greek students was the best present for our celebration on 9th May when we celebrated The EU DAY.

We hope that we will go on the next school year and we will finish our project successfully. I must tell you that our project got the Quality Label in the Czech Republic.

I wish you to get the same reward in Greece.

I hope to see you sometimes either in the Czech Republic or I would like to come to Greece to see your beautiful school again.

I am sending my best regards to the headteacher Mr Paschalis and to all the teachers who I met at your school last year when I was in Greece.

We wish you successful exams and a very beautiful summer holiday. Let‘ s meet again in autumn.

GOODBYE

Here is the podcast voice.

The National Conference of eTwinning in Jihlava

2007-04-16T23:53:00.000+02:00

The National Conference of eTwinning in Jihlava

On 13th and 14th April 2007 the Third National Conference took place in a beautiful town Jihlava. I had a chance to be there not only as an ambassador of the eTwinning, but also as the representative of our school Gymnasium Ceska Lipa.

Our school has been very successful again with the project called „Music helps us live“, which we have with our Greek partner school Kavasila High School.This time there are more classes and more teachers involved in the project. Class sekunda A/ they are singing and translating songs into English, tercie B/ they are drawing illustrations. My colleagues Hana Homolova and Eva Pazourkova are working together with me in the project. Our deputy headmaster Mr Radim Fojtu has been working on the film about eTwinning in our school.

We have got the Quality Label in the Conference and small presents for all the participants of the project.

I had a chance to see my new partner from Slovakia Mrs Mirka Zbinova from Puchov. She has prepared a very nice presentation called Neighbours. We are working together on the project and we hope that next time we will get the Quality Label, too. It was very touching to see my virtual partner face to face and at that time I wished I could also meet my frined from Greece. Maybe we will meet in Athens in the National Conference of Greece.

I would like to thank to all my partners who are working on the projects and I can help anybody who would like to join us in the future.

Easter greeting in sound

2007-04-11T12:15:00.000+02:00

APOKRIES ( Carnival period) IN GREECE.

2007-02-11T21:16:00.000+01:00

Apokries or carnival is a period of fun ,dancing and singing for greeks. Apokries means stop eating meat , as the word carnival means.It is one of the most popular feasts in our country.It is connected with good time and fancy dressing.

The roots of this feast can be found in ancient Greece ,in god Dionyssos’ worship.

Dionyssos was one of the twelve ancient greek gods.He was considered as the god of fetility.The ancient greeks honoured him in spring with float parades.Dancers and singers followed the floats,singing satyric songs. The dressing up was done to take in the bad winter spirits that keep the earth dead and let her blossom.

The same parades take place nowadays all over Greece , the last Sunday before Fast begins. They mean the start of spring.

There are a lot of traditions and customs all over Greece.On the last Sunday of Apokries people put on fires in open places ,dance and sing traditional songs around it.This has the meaning of purification and catharsis before Fast.During the last week of Apokries (just before Fast)people eat mainly dairy products and eggs.The second week before Fast they eat mainly meat.On Thursday of this “ meat week”, everybody goes out to have fun( lots of them are fancy dressed) and eat at restaurants .It is a special day for us.

The big day is Sunday before Fast.In the evening we visit parents ,grandparents,relatives to ask for forgiveness and apologise if we had a row with any of them.We have to kiss the hands of the elderly .In this way we show respect.The children get money that night. Also, in the villages grandma has a hard boiled egg and when her grandchildren visit her she does the following custom.She ties the egg with a thread on the edge of a stick.The children have their hands behind their back.They are on a line. She touches their mouths with egg once each round.The one who will bite The egg will get money to buy sweets I t is very funny and the adults want to do it with their parents.Biting the egg symbolizes the close of the mouth that will open again At Easter.

At school parties are held the last three hours of Friday before the carnival holidays.

The first day of Fast is also a holiday for us.We go to the countryside and we fly the kite.Even the Prime minister does the flying in Athens.This custom symbolizes the coming of th e spring.The kites are the herald of spring. These are some of the customs and traditions we have durimg carnival time in our area

Photography

2007-02-04T22:21:00.000+01:00

Hello Everyone,
I am Glyn Woods writing from Coal Aston, Derbyshire, United Kingdom.
I am a photographer working within the Department of Animal and Plant Sciences at the University of Sheffield here in the UK.

My work includes general photography of natural history subjects - photomacrography, standard representational photography, general photography of staff and students, field photography, scanning of 35mm slides, flatbed scanning of books, documents and artwork. I now use digital cameras exclusively. I prefer the camera 'raw' file type and I edit images using Adobe Photoshop CS2.

I work mostly with International Students from many countries of the world. At present the Department has several major research areas including Global Climate Change, Animal Behavioural Ecology, Plant Molecular Science, Social Insects, and Genomics.

A few examples of my work can be seen at:

http://picasaweb.google.co.uk/glynwoods

I hope this introduction will give you some general information about my work

Glyn Woods

Think about our planet

2007-01-28T20:59:00.000+01:00

Thinking about our planet has become more urgent than ever before this winter. Nothing is like it used to be. There are storms, high temperatures, snow in countries where they didn´t have it in the past. The part of our curriculum is speaking about the environment. That is why I was very glad, when I learned about the Competition on line on this topic.

We have taken a part in the competition organized by the EU on www.futurenergia.org

Students from sekunda A, tercie B and sekunda B have discussed the topic about separating rubbish, using alternative resources of energy, such as the sun, wind and water and saving the electricity.

We talked about the way how we can help ourselves. We should have a shower instead of a bath more often. We should turn off the taps when we are cleaning our teeth. When we are not watching TV, we should switch it off. We can separate paper and so we will save the trees. Trees are very important for our life. They control the weather. They clean the air. We should use the alternative ways of energy, they are clean. They do not pollute the air. We can see that the greenhouse effect is still more and more affecting our lives. There are stronger storms. In summer we have extremely hot days with no rain and in winter it is either quite warm or the snow comes in such a big amount that it causes terrible problems to all the people. On one hand the polar bears are dying because of melting ice in the North Pole and on the other hand, there are too many deer and other wild animals in Czech woods, which are destroying young trees because of the mild winters.

The children have drawn posters and they have created some slogans.

We hope that also other students and children will take part in this competition and will think about this serious topic. Nobody wants to live in the polluted and destroyed environment in the future. We cannot live without electricity, so we have to look after it better. I must say that the children have worked with a big enthusiasm.

eTwinning projects in 2006-2007

2007-01-15T20:40:00.000+01:00

etwinning projects in our school in the school year 2006/07

In this school year 76 students from the junior Grammar School in Ceska Lipa are working on five international projects. The school was very successful last year and we won two second prizes in the National Competition of the etwinning.

Prima B has started a project called Neighbours with their Slovak friends from Grammar School in Puchov. They are beginners in the international projects but they are doing very well and they are good at using ICT tools while they send emails to their partners. We combine three languages in this project. Czech/ Slovak/ English. It is good because there are topics which would be too difficult for the children and it is also good to practice the language of our neighbours.

Sekunda B has a large project with two other schools. One is from Poland and the other is from the town Braga from Portugal. Before Christmas all those students exchanged Christmas cards and we also sent a sound file/ a Christmas song in English. The project is called Cyber friends and will finish at the end for the school year.

Sekunda A is working on the project based on the curriculum of three subjects. Music, Art and English. The project is called Music helps us live. It is a music project with our best friends from Greece from Kavasila High School. Students introduce some of the folk songs. They illustrate each song by different techniques and they translate the songs into English. The project is accompanied by a large photogallery and Music file with MP3 pieces of music. At the beginning of the school year we sent all the new partners a film about our school, made by the students.

Kvarta A has a project with the students from Malta{ G.P. Agius de Soldanis, Girls Secondary School} and the students from Cyprus{ Linopetra Lyceum} The project is called Do you know me? and is based on Geography, History and CE.

The winners from the last year kvarta B have just started the project with Lithuania {M. Balinskio Secondary School.} and it is called New friends- new pictures of Europe and it is based on the project from the etwinning Culture in the box. The final work from this project will be a presentation of the groups of students about Lithuania and the students in our partner school will work on the presentations about the Czech Republic.

We have also sent some of our partner schools DVD with the Christmas concert of our School choir from December 2006.

We hope that all our projects will be successful and the students will like them. The total number from all the schools involved in the projects is 188.

Three Kings- 6th January

2007-01-08T23:04:00.000+01:00

On January 6th we celebrate Three kings. It is the day when volunteers, usually children, dressed as three kings go carolling. They are sent by The Czech Catholic Charity and all the collected money is given to old, ill, lonely people or the people who do not have any home.
This charity event is very popular, especially in villages where there are more religious people, and the children write with white chalk on the door K+M+B 2007. The capital letters stand for the names of the three kings who came to little Jesus and brought him presents.

In Moravia this celebration is much bigger that in Bohemia. There are not only carolling children but also
adults dressed up as those kings riding horses or camels throught the villages.

The last days of christmas holidays in Greece. The feast of Epiphany or "Theofania"

2007-01-02T19:54:00.000+01:00

On 6 January , every year , there is a religious holiday in Greece. All the shops , civil services, schools are closed to celebrate the Feast of Epiphany or “ Theophania or Fota” as it is called in Greece. Theophania means manifestation of God. Theophania commemorates the Baptism of Christ in the Jordan River and the divine revelation of the Holy Trinity.
This very day a long procession is formed after the religious service in churches, and follows the road that leads to water- the sea, river , lake, or even reservoir. In the front of the procession are the cherub icons, then the priests dressed in their best holiday clerical clothes, the VIPs and all the people of each city , town village. In most cities and towns the procession becomes more elaborate with the addition of music and military contingents.
At the end of the sanctification ceremony, the priest throws the Cross into the water, thus blessing the waters. Then, young daring men dive in the icy water to catch the cross. The one who will bring the cross up to the surface will be lucky and healthy for the whole year.On 7 January, Greeks celebrate st John ( Ioannis in greek). It is the name day of almost half of the men’s population, in Greece. When it is the name day of someone , there is a custom to visit that person . The women of the house prepare delicious dishes , sweets ant treat the guests. People drink , sing and dance at homes and clubs.In Greece, the name day of a person is something important . 7 January is the last day of Christmas holidays and housewives clean the houses and keep the Christmas tree ( the artificial ones ), the decorations , the colourful lights for the next Christmas holidays. Students do their homework , prepare their schoolbags so they are ready to start school again.

St Nicholas Day in Greece

2006-12-14T21:06:00.000+01:00

St Nicholas ,Nikolaos, is the patron saint of sailors and seamen in Greece.According to the greek tradition , his clothes are soaked with brine , his beard is always dripping with seawater.He fights storms to reach sinking ships and save men from drowning.
Greek ships carry an icon of st Nicholas.Sailors light a candle in front of his icon praying to have a safe passage. When a ship is on a storm and is in danger the sailors make a “ tama”, something like a promise to the saint.When they arrive at the harbor safe, they usually bring a small ship of gold, silver or wood to the church and put it on st Nicholas icon.

St. Nicholas´ Day

2006-12-05T23:13:00.000+01:00

St. Nicholas' Day is on 6th December but we celebrate it

during the night of 5th December. In this evening

St. Nicholas together with Angels and Devils come to our houses.

St. Nicholas has got a beautiful yellow coat, yellow boots

and a white hat with a yellow cross. Angels have beautiful wings and dresses.

They usually have beautiful hair too. Devils have horns

and a very long red tongue. They are black and sometimes

they have a tail and a chain. They have a sack.

If children were bad, the devil puts them inside the sack.

But only for a small moment. Then the children can come back.

The children are afraid of the Devils but they like

St. Nicholas and Angels who usually carry a basket

with sweets for good children and coal for bad children.

Let's go to one of the flats now...

Today is 5th December. Now it is the evening.

We are in a flat with three children. We are waiting for

St. Nicholas' parade. Somebody is ringing. I am looking who it is.

I hope, it is St. Nicholas. Yes, it is. I am opening the door.

There is St. Nicholas, two angels and five devils.

Children are begging not to let them in. But I am letting them in.

The Angels are carrying a basket with some sweets.

Children are looking at the basket. Now one of the devils

is going to the children. He is asking them if they were good.

They say yes. The Angels are giving them some goodies.

The Devils give them some coal too. They are frightening the kids.

Now they are finally leaving while St. Nicholas is smiling.

They are waving their hands. The next St. Nicholas' visit will be next year.

The children are happy and they will remember this evening for a long time.

/ written by Karolina Buresova /

17 November, a school celebration in Greece

2006-11-29T22:08:00.000+01:00

Every 17 November we honour the university students who struggled against junta and died for their ideals. These dead students are heroes and we never forget them.They fought for freedom and better education! . We owe them a lot. At schools we sing songs that refer to liberty and human rights, songs that inspired heroes and gave them strength to go on. We also show films or documentaries of that terrible night!

Good programme for our project

2006-11-25T19:02:00.000+01:00

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17th November in the Czech Republic

2006-11-19T20:53:00.000+01:00

17th November is the National Holiday in the Czech Republic. People stay at home and children do not go to school. That is why we celebrate it earlier at school. The programme is prepared by the students and the teachers themselves. It begins in the gym, where we can watch some dances and gymnastics. After this performance students can choose, some sports or music and drama. They can also draw pictures in the Art room or take part in the chemistry and physics laboratiories. This year there was also a new drama group. They played a fairy tale which they had written themselves and acted, too. No adults helped them. They were great. My younges students sang English songs in the Music room.

We celebrate 17th November to remember the year 1939 when Czech students took part in the funeral of one of them and they protested against German troops in Czechoslovakia. As the result of this demonstration, Czech Universities were closed for 6 years. A lot of Czech students were sent to concentration camps.

On 17th November 1989- Czech students protested against the Communist government and the polical situation in the country. They were stopped by the State police, but the whole nation wasn´t stopped and the Velvet revolution started. We have become free. Since that time we have been trying to live in democracy and we would never like to have the communist government back.

Malta- our new cooperation

2006-11-10T23:09:00.000+01:00

This school year we try to learn about the countries which are not very common for us. So we have chosen Malta and Cyprus for Kvarta A.
In Malta we are changing letters with a girls´school and in Cyprus with students who are a bit older.

This is what one of the students from Malta wrote about the country.

Thanks for the information about Czech. It seems a lovely country! Dad has been twice to Czech and my grandparents have also been there and all of them praised the country in general.

Malta is a small island in the center of the Mediterrean Sea, situated just beneath Sicily. Since it is an island, we don't have any neighbours, which can be both a disadvantage and an advantage. It can be a disadvantage when the Song for Europe takes place, since then we have to count on presenting a good song, otherwise no one would vote for us, and it can be an advantage since we have beautiful weather and a frequent change in temperature all year round and it doesn't get boring. We have a Mediterrenean type of climate, i.e. wet winters and dry summers. During summer it is extremely hot and many tourists choose Malta to go on holiday, because of the sandy beaches and the nice weather. In winter, it is a little cold and it rains a lot, but it never snows.

The Maltese people in general are very hospitable and get on well with foreigners. Many tourists also visit Malta for the many tourist attractions and historical places there are. In Malta, the main tourist attraction is Mdina (the old city) also called 'The Silent City', which houses a magnificent cathedral and there are also remains from the time when the Knights of St John used to live here. Then, in the capital city, Valletta, there are theatres, WWII remains and other arcitectural buildings which date back from the 16th century.Gozo, (the island where I live), is the sister-island of Malta. It is also divided into villages and then there is only one town, Victoria, which is also the capital city. Here one can find lots of shops, a cinema, 2 opera theatres and a magnificent cathedral which is situated in the old city, called the 'Citadel'. Many people who live in Malta like to come over to Gozo to stay for the weekend since Gozo has more rural ares than Malta, and thus is the place where you can get some peace and quiet. Scattered all over Malta and Gozo are also some temples which date back from 2,500 B.C. and are the eldest Neolitic temples in Europe, not to say, in the world.The official language is Maltese and the currency is the Maltese Lira, but as from January, it will change into the Euro.

I would strongly recommend Malta and Gozo in any tourist guide since they are 2 very picturesque islands. I guess what I'd miss most if I were to live in another country are my friends and family and of course, the activities which take place in the island where I live!WEll, I guess that's all! If you would like any more information just ask and I'd be more than willing to give you more!

Voice - lyrics of the first song

2006-10-17T18:59:00.000+02:00

Stones are helping

2006-10-12T22:19:00.000+02:00

Our school has a little girl in India who is our adoptive sister. We are paying her school attendance every year. This year we have decided to paint flat stones and by selling them to anybody we will get enough money for her next school year. At the beginning it looked like a problem. It was not easy to find so many flat stones but at the moment a lot of students from many classes are painting stones with enthusiasm. Maybe they do not realize that every stone which will be sold means one day at school for little Mary Prahitba.
The stones will be sold in our school in the week when we are going to celebrate The Students´Day.
I hope that we will sell all of them. They look really great and you can give them to somebody as a small present which can make other people happy.
Thank you all, who are working on this great event.

eTwinning Day in Ceska Lipa

2006-10-08T23:43:00.000+02:00

3rd October was like any other day in our school. But it was different. It is not easy to stop learning in the classes of our school and to spend the whole day celebrating etwinning day. So I decided to spend the day working hard. At first we prepared noticeboards about all our projects and also about our trip to Greece.
Students from kvarta B were so lucky that they could go to Greece to visit our eTwinning friends in two schools. Thessaloniki and Kavasila High School. We also celebrated our big success, the second prize in the National Competition of the eTwinning in the Czech Republic.
It was a very long journey, 25 hours on the regular coach route from Prague to Thessaloniki. But we didn´t mind. We couldn´t wait to see our friends and to tell them that we all had been successful.

Our Greek friends looked after us very well. It was one of the best trips in my life. All the children were happy, for some of them it was for the first time they stayed in a hotel, saw the sea and ate in a sea restaurant. We also visited Greek families and tried some Greek food. One of the most beautiful days was when we visited Vergina- the tomb of Philip II, the father of Alexander of Macedonia.
We visited both schools and celebrated the eTwinning day there.
On the way back we got so many presents and so much food from our Greek friends that we could hardly carry it. We will never forget this beautiful trip. I know that I have my second family in Greece. Eleni and Despina are my faithful friends.
We will have some more projects. On 3rd October secunda B got the names of the children from a portugal town called Braga and we started working on the project called CYBER FRIENDS and secunda A will go on with the Greek school Kavasila High School. The name of the project is MUSIC HELPS US LIVE. It will be a team project of the English teacher, music, art and ICT teachers. We want to introduce our folk songs to each other.
We also watched films about Kavasila and Thesslaoniki, the children spoke about their trip to Greece and we were happy that more people want to take part in the etwinning programme.
We didn´t celebrate like other schools, we were working very hard the whole day.

eTwinning Day in Greek schools

2006-10-01T21:37:00.000+02:00

The students from Grammar school in Ceska Lipa celebrated the eTwinning Day with their friends a week earlier. They took a chance to do it while they were visiting their partner school in Kalamaria Thessaloniki.
The name of the project with this school is called "Let´s cross the bridge" and we are happy to say that we have crossed it. In April the Greek students came to Ceska Lipa for a few days and it was our turn now. We were very lucky because the Greek school paid for our accommodation, food and a lot of other things. Without their help we wouldn´t be able to go.
The invitation in the school was very friendly. We met the students in the amphitheater of the school where we celebrated together the eTwinning Day. The whole celebration was open by the headmaster of the Greek school. Then we gave the school a winning cup to remind them of our common success in the National eTwinning Competition in the Czech Republic where we had won the second prize. Our Greek friends prepared a presentation about the project and we spoke about the Czech Republic. During the celebration we could also see some Greek folk dances in beautiful costumes and the school band played and sang some songs.
Our students got presents and a lot of studying material about Thessaloniki. They were very happy. Then we went around the school and went on with the celebration for the rest of the day. In the evening we were invited to the Greek families to try delicious Greek cuisine.

We continued with celebrations also the next day 26th September when we travelled to the other partner school called Kavassila High School not far from a very interesting , old town Veria. We have been working with this school for a long time and we have had a lot of projects together. The last project is called "Where do we come from".
When I opened the door of the school I felt I was at home. I couldn´t wait the kiss my twin sister Eleni Kostopoulou.
We were expected in the gym. The atmosphere was very friendly and the students from my school felt like film stars. We showed a film about our school and we spoke about the Czech republic again. Our town is more than 1600 km far from Kavassila but we didn´t have that feeling. We celebrated the same success as in Thessaloniki. Again the second prize in the National etwinning Competition of the Czech Republic.
The Greek children sang a song Fourteen birds and during this song they gave us baskets with fruit from their farms. It was very nice and touching. On the top of each basket was a little paper bird as a symbol of the next project we are going to have together. The name of this project is "Music helps us live".
Our boys played football in the school yard and the girls had a chat with Greek children. I got letters from new etwinning participants and a film, too.
My friend Eleni showed us Veria and told us about history of the town. We also visited the Tomb of Phillip II which was something very special.

I think that both days were very successful and we will remember them for a long time.

I have been to the Conference

2006-09-17T22:27:00.000+02:00

Hradec Kralove is a big city in east of the Czech Republic. This famous city was the place where the 5th International and 9th National conference of English teachers took place during the first weekend in September.
It is my favourite event and I am a regular participant.

Usually more than three hundred teachers who love English get together to study new methods, to meet new friends and to listen to seminars and workshops of experienced authors of various English course books.
And what more, The Headway programme celebrated 20th birthday with the cake and a glass of champagne.
I was very glad that I could have a chance to meet some of the teachers in my seminar about the eTwinning webpage and the International school projects . Some of them had never heard about the eTwinning before, some of them promised to register their school and to take a part at the nearest seminar which would be organized in the place where they live.
During evenings we could watch The Bear Theatre in English. They are really great and they perform all the plays in English for schools. You can choose different levels. Unfortunately, this school year we will not invite them.
We also got some new course books, a lot of posters and new ideas how to teach some topics in more interesting ways.
I hope I will be able to come next year, too.

SUMMER THOUGHTS by an etwinning student

2006-09-14T22:00:00.000+02:00

Here is what Anastasia, a 14 year old student of Kavassila high school ,Imathia, Greece wrote about last summer:
Yesterday it was the first day at school. My feelings are a bit confused. Sadness and happiness. Sadness because summer holidays are over, already past.It was really great for me.!In July, after school had finished, my family and I went to the seaside, in Katerini, for two weeks.There I stayed in a nice small hotel. I swam and sunbathed all day, so I got a super tan.! But, please, don't think that I was just a lazy, lively girl strolling around. I read two literature books. The one that charmed me more was "ta mistika tou valtou" written by Penelope Delta. The story takes place in the region of central Macedonia ( here is the school ) in 1912, during the macedonian struggle for freedom against Turkish and Bulgarians .In August, as I am a member of the local dancing club, I visited many towns where we danced, dressed in traditional costumes. Also, my cousins from Canada came and stayed at my place. I practiced my English a lot!However, all good things have an end quickly. September came and Happiness ,too.I am back at school ,ready to make new etwinning friends and anxious to know more about the culture of other European countries.The picture shows the traditional costume I wear quite often.

Greeting from Ceska Lipa

2006-09-12T00:51:00.000+02:00

AFTER SUMMER HOLIDAYS

2006-09-04T22:16:00.000+02:00

Dear etwinning friends,

Summer is over, a new school year is starting and I would like to express my hopes that this academic year will be full of creativity and progress for you and your students.
Also, I would like to share with you a teaching tip that I have been using so far .It is for the first time you meet new students.

In order to have a clear idea of the level of their english knowledge,I give them each, a personal letter where I write some personal things about myself. Then I ask them to answer the letter at home or in class. When I get it, I know how well they can write, their grammar level, their vocabulary and, the most important, things about themselves so I can handle them as personalities better.

I hope this teaching tip will work as well with your new classes as with my ones.

Friendship On-line: Summer workshop in Trutnov

2006-08-31T21:01:00.000+02:00

Friendship On-line: Summer workshop in Trutnov

Summer workshop in Trutnov

2006-08-31T18:11:00.000+02:00

It was a very good idea to come to Trutnov and spend last free days at the eTwinning workshop there. People who came to this event were from all the parts of the Czech Republic and there was also a small group of our friends from Slovakia.

What was this event about? Of course about etwinning projects. 48 people were divided into three imaginary countries. Poland, Iceland and Greece. Each country had four different schools with funny names, such as The Olive secondary school from Greece, Kostas School, The Little Suns, Fred the Ant, Pytlik High School, etc...
The representatives of each school simulated work on a project in the etwinning programme. Of course that they were using the training portal to try all the activities. They had to register themselves, to find a partner, to discuss their ideas about the project, to communicate with their partner, to register the project and to work on it. They were using different ICT tools and could practise various methods. Many of them could try sofware tools which they had never used before / webblog, the SKYPE,web page, etc/

On Thursday evening there was a big open-air party in the school yard with live music and pork on a spit. The friendly athmospere was full of music,
dance and new ideas about future projects.

Friday was the last day. After presentations of the projects and evaluation the participants got the certificate of attendance and a CD with all the contributions and photographs from the seminar. And it was the end of the workshop. I must say that the whole time spent in Trutnov was very practical and we all have learned a lot. Thanks to Vasek Fisher, Zdenek Hetes and Honza Manek, ICT teachers from three Trutnov schools, we spent an unforgattable time in their beautiful town.

New school year

2006-08-31T17:36:00.000+02:00

Hello everybody,
our holiday is over and we are back at school. I would like to wish you a lot of success in all activities and competitions we are going to enter this year. Soon we will travel to Greece to visit our friends from the partner school. The students are looking forward to this event very much. Then we will celebrate The etwinning Day on most of our schools. It will be on 4th October. I hope that more people will join us in the eTwinning projects. Our last school year was very successful. We got two Quality Labels for the projects with Greek schools. The names of the projects were Where do we come from? / with Kavasila High School / and Let´s cross the bridge / with 90 Gymnasio Kalamarias in Thessaloniki.
More projects are waiting for us this school year and so Let´s start working again.
HAVE FUN WITH THE ETWINNING PROJECTS.

Still up- still fighting the technology

2006-08-25T01:44:00.000+02:00

After coming back home from the summer workshop in Trutnov I am full of energy. I want to practise everything I have learned there.

Nice memories

2006-08-23T16:14:00.000+02:00

Have a look at my photos

Hello everybody

2006-07-03T09:00:00.000+02:00

Using evoca system could be easy for us. We could record voices of our students. I am trying to learn how to do it and I hope that soon it will be no problem for me.

We will have a break

2006-06-26T18:00:00.000+02:00

Our holiday is coming and we can say that we have finished successfully another year with the eTwinning projects.
At the beginning, my weblog was created only for my purpose but later we have realized that it would be a good means of communication for all of us. That is why the link on other etwinning websites is not here. It hasn’t been done deliberately, it was just the beginning of the blog.
Anyway, now I can say that we have done a lot of work and we are grateful to all our webpages which are so important for all of us.
Here are some more links:
http://www.etwinning.net the international website for all of us
www.etwinning.gr which is the Greek website, very important for all my Greek partners.
http://www.etwinning.be which will be in the future for our Students‘ Councils cooperation
www.etwinning.cz the Czech website which helps Czech teachers
In the next school year I will go on with some of my old projects especially with the Greek projects which are really top quality and my Greek partners are very reliable and hardworking people.
We also want to try a project with a school in Oxford and my students are looking forward to writing their first letters to Britain very much.

I would like to wish all my partners a very nice rest and peaceful time spent somewhere nice.
We need to gain new strength for the next school year.

SEE you in autumn, my dear friends.

Memories- our trip to the Czech Republic

2006-06-22T19:55:00.000+02:00

Despina Ganidou
In October 2005, I received a letter, via e-mail, from a Czech teacher. It was from Nada Kadlecova. She and her students wanted to work with me and my students in an eTwinning project. The name of the project was “Let’s cross the bridge”. The aim was to help the students from both sites to know the partners´ country, customs and everyday life. Ten students from my school responded and started working on the project. At the beginning, the students were very shy, but as time was passing and they were exchanging information they were getting more excited. By January they started asking to visit the partner’s school. By the end of April their wish came true. Nine students, the Headmistress of my school and I went to the Czech Republic on a 6 days trip, from 25th to 30th of April. The plan of the trip was the following : · 25/4 : visit to Karlovy Vary, the famous and beautiful city with hot springs · 26/4 : at the Czech school : a lesson together, a short concert offered by Czech students and their music teacher, sightseeing at school. Ceska Lipa : sightseeing in the town, the local museum and dinner with the Czech families. · 27/4 : at the school : a lesson together about the Czech Republic and its history. Terezin : sightseeing in the concentration camp. Litomerice : sightseeing in the town, · 28/4 : Liberec : visiting the ZOO together with all the Czech children · 29/4 – 30/4 : Prague : The exhibition of Charles IV with statues, paintings, liturgical things, textile, precious pots and semiprecious stones from 11 countries of the world. Cathedral of St. Vitus, Charles Bridge, St Nicolas, Old Town, Loreto, cruise on a riverboat. During the trip we had the chance to : · visit this lovely country of central Europe, · see some of the most interesting places like Prague, Karlovy Vary, Terezin concentration camp, Ceska Lipa and Liberec, · visit the school of our partners and meet our friends reinforcing our friendship · learn more about Europe’s history · learn more about our partners’ everyday life and customs · learn more about the 2nd World War and its catastrophic consequences For me it was the first trip abroad as a teacher accompanying students and it was a unique, pleasant and interesting experience. I would like to thank my partners from Ceska Lipa, especially Mrs Kadlecova. Without her, neither the trip nor the project would have become true.

Author:
Despina Ganidou
Published:
15.05.2006

We are coming to Greece

2006-06-11T23:20:00.000+02:00

Some of us are coming to Greece in autumn.We are very glad that we have been invited by our Greek friends and that we will see them again. We have already booked the coach tickets, we will travel for 25 hours but we do not mind. We are very happy.We will have a chance to explore the city where Cyril and Methodus came from. They are very important for our country and the language.Thank you, our friends for inviting us.

Important addresses

2006-06-11T23:03:00.000+02:00

Dear friends, my colleagues. I have collected important addresses for you. Some of them are good only for Czech teachers, but the most of them are good for projects and for English teaching.
Here they are:

Important addresses

1. Pro začátek navázání vztahů s jinou školou doporučuji adresu / for getting new contacts with another school/
http://www.europeanschoolsproject.org/image/

2. Hledání partnerů a dobrých nápadů / possibility to find new partners and also new ideas http://myeurope.eun.org

3. Každé jaro až do 9.května / activities every spring between 21st march to 9th May/ www.springday2006.org

4. web pro základní a střední školy http://www.ceskaskola.cz/

5. poslech zpráv v AJ s textech, básně- vše zdarma / listening to the news in English http://www.englishclub.com/listening/index.htm

6. Užitečná webová adresa pro malé děti je www.kidersite.org a zejména její část / website for little kids/ http://www.kindersite.org/RedirectFrame.asp?SID=53&KidsBarYes=1&VarSidNumHiddenFieldName=13523

7. Pro uživatele, kteří se moc nevyznají pro vytvoření vlastní webové stránky http / for those who are not very good at making web pages/ ://www.schoolrack.com/

8. Několik worksheetu dobrých pro začátečníky/ ZŚ// for beginners at English/
http://www.shine-english.com/elementary.html

9. angličtina pro všechny věkové skupiny / English for everyone http://www.oup.com/elt/teachersclub/?cc=cz

10. pro malé děti angličtina,hry malování, něco je zdarma / for little kids, games, painting/ http://www.eslkidstuff.com/OnlineGamesMain.htm
11.
výborná sada webových stránek/ a lot of good websites/
http://omicron.felk.cvut.cz/~bobr/projekty.htm
12. dobré doplňkové texty http://www.insideout.net/
13.
dobré pro střední školy- možnost poslouchat zprávy + text / listening activities/ http://www.englishclub.com/listening/index.htm
14. dobré pro elementary students http://www.englishclub.com/listening/index.

15. další zajímavé weby http://kaj.upol.cz/extras/websites/sitesgeneral.htm

16. pro nejmenší, i pro ty co neumějí anglicky / for little kids/
http://www.kindersite.org/RedirectFrame.asp?SID=53&KidsBarYes=1&VarSidNumHiddenFieldName=13523

17. známá stránka pro angličtináře důležitá, zejména pro ty, co používají Headway
http://www.oup.com/elt/select?url=/eltnew/teachersclub/

18. ukázka projektu z etwinningu / public etwinning example/
http://twinspace.etwinning.net/launcher.cfm?lang=en&cid=248

19. zasílání projektů do soutěže elearning / e learning projects/
http://elearningawards.eun.org/ww/en/pub/elearningawards2005/index.htm

20. dobrá stránka s připravenými gramatickými testy / grammar tests/

http://www.usingenglish.com/handouts/

21. písně ve formě podcastingu MP3 / songs /
http://www.manythings.org/songs/

22. čtení a poslech zároveň/ reading and listening/
http://www.manythings.org/listen/

23. jazykové hry s obrázky/ languages games and pictures/
http://www.manythings.org/lulu/

24. obecná strana s celou řadou aktivit pro angličtinu
http://www.manythings.org/

25. oficiální stránka anglické královny / Official Royal website /
http://www.royal.gov.uk/output/Page1.asp
26. e learning, inside out strana, cvičení čtecí
http://www.insideout.net/e-lessons.htm

27. příběhy pro děti, story maker / how to make stories/
http://www.britishcouncil.org/kids-stories.htm

28. písničky pro děti, např. computer mouse/ song for kids/
http://www.britishcouncil.org/kids-songs.htm

29. jazyková hra hangman computers
http://www.britishcouncil.org/kids-games-hangman-computers.htm

30. hlavní stránka aktivit pro děti / the main page for children/
http://www.britishcouncil.org/kids.htm

31. pro děti Barnaby medvídek- hry, příběhy, zeměpis
http://www.bbc.co.uk/schools/barnabybear/

32. jazykové hry pro děti- minulý čas, příběhy, tvoření vět, / language games for children, grammar/
http://www.bbc.co.uk/schools/starship/english/index.shtml

33. oficiální stránka pro různé předměty, je třebas se zaregistrovat
http://www.veskole.cz/ / for Czech teachers/

34. další zdroje cvičení, nutná registrace / more exercises, you have to register/
http://www.onestopenglish.com/

The National conference

2006-06-08T18:54:00.000+02:00

On 29th May in Pardubice, there was opening of the second National Conference of the eTwinning. I was very happy that I could be there, because I could present two of my projects with Greece. I presented these projects not only in public during my speech but I also had a chance to organize a two day-exhibition of the photographs, final products, my cookery books, travel guide and the language phrase book in three languages.
A lot of people came to my table during breaks and I tried to give them as much information about the eTwinning as possible. I got a lot of new friends and contacts.
The programme was full of excellent project talks which had the common topic- projects between Czech schools and their European partners.
There were also representatives from other European countries such as Poland, Slovakia, Norway Holland and one American teacher from Canada.
In the evening I got two awards for my students, two Quality Labels for the projects Where do we come from and Let´s cross the bridge. The students also got T-shirts and small presents. We are looking forward to going on with my projects.

EXAMINATIONS IN GREECE

2006-05-26T09:03:00.000+02:00

Dear friends,
At this time of year all greek students in junior high schools sit in final exams, so they can go on their studies to the next grade. They are examined in every subject taught at school such as maths, physics,chemistry, greek language, greek literature, ancient language, foreign languages, religion, geography. To pass to the next grade they have to get ,at least, 9 and a half as an average mark. This mark comes from the oral marks they have got in the three terms, in each subject, and the mark of the written exams.
The written exams last about a month and are in 12 or 13 subjects.The students come to school three times a week, day after day, to take the exams. The written testa are corrected by the teacher who taught the subject and the final results are announced the last week of June.
Those students who have not managed to get an average of 9,5 in six and more subjects,have to repeat the class. Those who failed to get a pass in 1-5 subjects re-sit in written and oral exams.
Of course , we help students pass to the next grade because gymnasium studies are compulsory in Greece.

Amazing email

2006-05-23T23:23:00.000+02:00

Some time ago I wrote about my mother´s memories from WWII.My article was also put on the web pages about stories from those terrible years. And this was very good. I had no idea how many people had read this story and one day when I opened my email post I found a very interesting letter there. This letter was written by Wanda Shannon, the daughter of one of the soldiers from my mum´s Workbook. She sent me her parents´wedding photograph and she wrote about her father´s life. So the man, who had died in the Square wasn´t her father.

This is what she had written.......
My father died of cancer in 1970 at the age of 51. Iwas thankful to read your story and find out where my Dad was and what he did during the war.

Since that time I have been changing letters with this woman who has become very close to my heart.

It is nice to have a lot of friends.

MOTHERS´ DAY

2006-05-19T00:12:00.000+02:00

The task of the students was to write a short poem about their mums to celebrate their Mothers´Day.
Bara has written a very nice poem. Here it is.

My mum is my life

Without her I won’t be here today.
My mum is a big support for me.
When I am not OK
She hugs me and gives me
A special warm feeling of safety.
With her
I am immortal.
My mum is my sun.
Her touches are like the sunshine.
She never turns her bag upon me.
When I am sad,
She is sad, too.
When I am happy,
My mum is happy, too.
She is my example.
She is my big help.
Anytime.
She always knows
What has happened to me.
Sometimes I am ashamed
Of my behaviour
But then I say
Sorry, mum.
And she says
OK.
Everyone thinks
Their mum is the kindest, the best.
But all mums are the best.
And I love my mum
As nothing else
In the world.
For all the time.
Sorry, mum-
That I am not
A perfect child.

Karel Vacek
My Mum
She is my best friend.
She is my wonderful sunshine.
She is my beautiful rose.
She is my light in the dark.
She is my sun in the night.
She gives me love.
She is with me when I need help.
She always knows what I need.
She gives me good mood.
She is my and only my mother.
I love her and she loves me.

Ramadan

2006-05-17T22:01:00.000+02:00

Our friends from Ordu are very special because we do not know much about their part of the world. They cannot be our eTwinning members yet because Turkey is not in the EU, but never mind, we think that we should know also about the countries where a lot of people go on holiday. Turkey is not only hot weather ,bazaars and sandy beaches in the south. It is also the country with hardworking people who want to open the door of knowledge, the door of understanding to those who want to learn more. My students are the people who have decided to make new penfriends in Turkey. And they do not regret. Their letters are interesting, written in good English and full of new information for us.

Here is one of them

Ramadan is a holy month when people -like us- fast to show their trust to the gods. This festival is very cultural and full of dimsity. This year it started in January on the thirtieth or the thirty-first, which means it has already finished. Next year it will be held. It varies from year to year and place to place. So if you are ever in Indonesia at the time of Ramadan set yourself the challenge to go without food and water from dawn to dusk.
Ramadan is a festival held every year lasting one month. Ramadan's a festival for Muslims around the world particularly Indonesians. During Ramadan over one billion muslims fast during day light. The festival starts at dawn and ends at sunset (dusk). Sick and traveling Muslims and women and children in certain conditions are a exception from fasting. In some places when the fast is on, people cool themselves by pouring cold water on their faces with their mouths closed. During Ramadan, a muslim would pray at the end of the day before their small meal.
When the festival of Ramadan finishes and the month of Shawwal starts the Muslims have a three-day celebration. The celebration is held in the holiday called Id-al-fitr. On this holiday people exchange gifts and family and friends gather to pray in congregation and for large meals they got. In some Muslim cities they celebrate by having a fair for the end of Ramadan.

Last year the Czech students read about this festival Id-al-fitr in the textbooks, but they just read it without any interest. This year when they saw the festival in the letter, they remembered it. It was very different. I learn through my students´letters ,too. And this is that important thing about all our projects. To pass new knowledge, new skills, new abilities on each other, on the students and teachers, to break the barrier between us.

Dear Turkish friends. Thank you for all your letters. We wish you very nice summer holidays and we hope to be in touch with you again.

Old games are still alive

2006-05-17T20:33:00.000+02:00

Kostas from Kavasila High school and Alena Mayova from Gymnasium Česká Lípa are both PE teachers. They decided to try a project in the eTwinning,too. The name of the project was The old games are still
alive.It was a short project in which they introduced each other the rules of one old game. The Czech teacher introduced the game BEATING OUT. It was difficult to translate the name into English, but the rules were quite clear.
The Greek teacher described the game called FAININDA, really a very old game.
Then, both teachers tried to teach the games during PE lessons and they also introduced the partner´s school. At the end of the school year the games will be played in public.
The good thing of the project was that both teachers practised ICT tools and also English. The Czech teacher Alena Mayová has started studying English course to be able to communicate better.
When I visited Greece in April 2006 I also went to Kavasila High school. Kostas asked me to take part in his PE lesson and he showed me the way how they had understood the rules of the Czech game. It was so interesting to see this game being played by the Greek children. They found the game too cruel and they didn´t want to hit the players with the ball. They didn´t want to hurt themselves. So instead of hitting the opposite players, they hit the floor and then waited if the ball hit somebody by chance.I explained the rules to them again and in a few minutes they knew how to play the game.
At the end of the lesson they showed me their game which is really very old and comes from the ancient times.Now I will know if the Czech students can play Faininda well. Also the presentation helped us very much

Two students are sending greetings

2006-05-17T14:01:00.000+02:00

Dear friends,
we would like to send you the voice of two students. Martin and Martina from the class kvarta B are sending best wishes to the students from our project. It is a pity that we have not seen each other face to face, but thanks to the ICT tools you know our pictures and now you will know our voice too. Have a very nice summer and relax during the holiday. We hope your exams will go without any problems.
The voice of Martin.
The voice of Martina.

Memories from the Greek students

2006-05-15T22:06:00.000+02:00

The Greek team visited Czech Republic on a six days trip, from 25th to 30th of April 2006. Here are our experiences from the visit

Agelica Chalkia
A few weeks ago, I and my classmates had the chance to go to Czech Republic and visit Ceska Lipa and the students there. First of all, I have to admit that it was a wonderful experience! We arrived at Prague at 6.00 am (too early)!! We got on a bus and went to Karlovy Vary, a very beautiful city, which was actually like we were in a fairy tale. We stayed there till 3.00 pm and that was our first ‘connection’ with the Czech language. At almost 6 o’clock we arrived at our hotel where Mrs. Kadlecova was waiting for us. We were very tired so we stayed in our hotel to relax. The next day we went to our pen friends’ gymnasium. It was really enormous!!! The classes were very big. But what really surprised me was the gym; it was really big and there were plenty of sports you could do. This was the day that we finally met all the students! Of course, I liked them all! We represented ourselves to them and we showed them a project we made for our town, Thessaloniki. We had a tour of the whole school by the students. The students prepared a concert for us which was really superb. In the evening, we went to our pen friends’ houses for dinner. I and Evangelia went to Bara’s house. We had a really great time!!! We saw many photographs and talked for hours. The third day we went to the gymnasium and then, by bus, we travelled to the city Terezin for some hours and then to Litomerice, an assembly encampment during the 2nd World War. It was amazing and touching at the same time! The fourth day we went by train to the city Liberec and visited the Europe’s most ancient zoo, which was a very interesting and funny experience.!!! When we came back to Ceska Lipa we went to eat altogether at a restaurant and then some of the students went to our hotel to say goodbye. That night was very moving us we really appreciated everything they’ve done for us and we are sad as we won’t see them again for a long time. I really hope they’ll come to Greece soon! The next two days we travelled and stayed at Prague. The first day there Mrs. Kadlecova was with us. We visited museums and churches [which differ a lot from ours]! The last day, we saw some more things but that was unfortunately the day We had to leave. I, personally, was very sad that day, because we were leaving the country we really loved! I will never forget all the boys and girls and I hope they won’t forget us too. They were all very friendly and good people!
Olga Panteliadou
OUR TRIP TO CESKA LIPA (25th –30th of APRIL) In the beginning of this school year I didn’t expect my participation in the “e-twinning” program to be such an exciting experience! Our first approach with the students of the Check school through e- mails was very interesting and started to build a relationship with them… But the best would be to meet them face to face and this gave us the idea to visit them. Our teacher, Mrs. Ganidou and the headmistress encouraged this plan. So, on the 25th of April we traveled by plane to Czech Republic full of expectations and next day we were visiting Ceska Lipa’ school! We found an unforgettable reception by our partners, finally we could speak to each other and walk around the institution: a huge building with roomy areas and fully equipped classrooms (….). We shared a great time with our new friends following a busy schedule: a day at school, dinner with our partner, visit to the concetration camp, wonderful moments at the zoo, last evening at the hotel and finally the farewell… The two last days in Prague will stay in my mind as a barrage of fascinating pictures, art, beauty and crowded streets. We returned late at night of the 30th of April, excausted but satisfied, full of impressions and having the confidence that we shared a unique experience. We all hope to meet our friends soon, this time at our place, continuing this communication which turns to be a real friendship!!!

Author:
Despina Ganidou
Published:
15.05.2006

The last bell

2006-05-14T22:42:00.000+02:00

The students who finish our school have some unwritten rights the last year.In winter they organize a dancing ball for the teachers, parents and their friends. It is always a big event for the whole town. And at the end of their school year they say good bye to everybody at school.

How do they do it? The day when they get the school report is called The Day of the Last Bell.

The finishing students put on various funny masks and custumes and they wait in front of the school building for the teachers and for the younger students. They ask them for money which is used for the final celebration. There is a lot of fun and especially the youngest students are chased and they are watered by perfumes and vingar with water.

During the first lesson the students in costumes visit classes and they sing songs or say some poems. They say GOODBYE to all the younger students who have to stay at school.Sometimes, it is too noisy, but it is only once a year, so we, teachers, have to survive.

Then all the teachers gether in the room and the students thank them for all the lessons and all the education they have received from them. Every teacher gets a flower. Sometimes it is sad, especially when the students are nice and popular. Some classes are really good and so it is not easy to say goodbye to them.

Then the students stay at home for one week. In the students´slang this week is called THE SAINT WEEK. They study very hard because after this free week, they come back to school to pass the oral exams from four subjects. They have fifteen minutes for every subject and they have to speak on the chosen topic. They can study in advance, they have more than fifty tasks from every subject to prepare. The students who study during the whole school year have no problems but those who rely on the Saint Week are often in trouble. When they pass the exam, they get Graduating Final School Report, which is called MATURITA REPORT in my country.

But it is not the end. After this exam,they have to pass the enter exam to the university they want to attend the next year.

GOOD LUCK, graduating students!!! I wish you easy questions and happy future.

Last evening

2006-05-08T20:17:00.000+02:00

Our two teachers. Both are called DESPINA.

The last evening arrived and we all were very sad. After the trip to Liberec ,we finished in Pizzeria in Ceska Lipa. The students helped their foreign friends with the menu which was not in English. We all had delicious pizzas and after that we went to the hotel Kahan to say good bye to our friends. Some of the students exchanged small presents, addresses and emails. We will go on with our project next year again, so we will be in touch again. The purpose of the etwinning projects is not visiting the partner school. This was something special and I can say that it has made our partnership more meaningful and we all hope that next year we will see each other again.
The next day the Greek students travelled to Prague and they visited the Exhibition of Charles IV and some other places which are usually visited by the foreigners. I stayed with them for one more day in Prague and when we had to part, I couldn´t speak. I was so touched, too emotional. The people on the coach didn´t understand what was going on. They looked at me in a strange way. For me, it was not only saying GOOD BYE to fantasic people but it was the last link with the other Greek friends who I had visited before. I had to say good bye to all my Greek friends. I am glad that we have the internet which really makes the world a small place. We are close although so far away.
What I really know that I have friends for life in the country which has become very interesting for me.
EFCHARISTO, AHAPYTY FILI. Adio.

LIBEREC

2006-05-08T19:06:00.000+02:00

The third day was the time to visit one of the oldest ZOOs in Europe with its famous WHITE TIGERS and funny sea lions. We travelled together, Czech and Greek group. The journey by train was the best place to get to know each other better and better. I was glad when I saw that the groups were mixed. They played some games and tried to create a nice hairdo on John´s head.

The weather was very cold. Some of the students were wearing summer clothes such as Bara and Klarka. She was completely blue. I was worried about their health but they were OK after the trip./ suprise/

We went to see the DINOSAUR EXHIBITION with 3d cinema. It was quite interesting and we took a lot of pictures of the models of the dinosaurs which were really big.

Terezin

2006-05-08T18:19:00.000+02:00

The second day was a serious programme, visiting the concentration camp TEREZIN.

Before we went to the camp, we had a lesson about the WWII,and I told them my mother´s story from the end of the war. Some of theCzech students were allowed to go with us.

When we got to Terezin, our tour guide was a black man from Zambia ,from Africa. It was not very easy to understand him, but the students were OK. Later the boys said that they had understood a lot. I was very pleased to hear that. Visiting the camp is always very sad and when we imagine those difficult conditions they lived in, we are glad that we don´t have this experience from our personal life. We finished the day in Novy Bor in the Glass museum and our friends could also buy some glass for their parents there. It was a good day and we were lucky that the storm came in the late afternoon.

Our Greek friends have arrived

2006-05-08T18:00:00.000+02:00

After a long time of planning, chatting and exchanging emails the day D has arrived. On 25th April in the evening, a group of nine students and two teachers came to Ceska Lipa. They came from Thessaloniki, from our partner school. We have been working on the project together for almost ten months and so their visit was something very special for all of us. We couldn´t wait to meet them at school.
They came the next day in the morning and we had a lesson together. Then our school prepared a concert for our students and the guests and our Greek friends also sang one song and showed us a Greek dance.

In the afternoon after lunch, when the Greeks tried a typical Czech dish dumplings and vegetable cream sauce/ they didn´t like it very much/, we all went to the centre of the town. The Czech students had prepared a presentation about Ceska Lipa and Mr Lofler made a film about it. The film is very beautiful. After this activity the Czech students took their friends in their families. Many of them were a bit shy, because it was for the first time in their life when they had to use English in a different way than at school. Everythings was great and when they brought the Greeks back to the hotel, nobody was shy at all.

Czech Easter a letter from our librarian Renata

2006-05-04T22:44:00.000+02:00

Hello my dear friend Lena,
Thank you very much for your beautiful present which Nada brought to me. I have to apology that I haven’t written earlier, but I was really very busy. Now I am going to write about Easter in the Czech Republic.

The Holy week
Flower Sunday { 9th April}
the Sunday before Easter which celebrates triumphal coming of Jesus Christ to Jerusalem and several days before his crucifixion. On this day, people clean their homes and they sweep out soot.
Also our family cleans the flat and we get ready for Easter.

Green Thursday { 13th April}

The name comes from the custom that people had to eat only green things at this day. It is also because during the Last supper Jesus Christ was eating green lettuce when the soldiers got him.

Great Friday { 14th April}

It was the day when Jesus Christ suffered a lot, when he died on the cross. It is the time of the meditation, fasting and silence.

White Saturday {15th April}

Everybody is preparing for Easter Sunday. Women bake Easter lamb, hot cross buns, delicious dishes. Men make pomlazka{ pleated willow twigs decorated with ribbons}, women and children decorate Easter eggs

In my family we bake the Easter lamb and I decorate the eggs. My son isn’t very interested in this activity.

Easter Sunday { 16th April}
It is Jesus Christ’s resurrection. All the people celebrate, they visit grandparents, some people go to cemeteries to remember their dear relatives.

Easter Monday { 17th April}
This is the most important day in my country. In the early morning boys and men go carolling. They go from house to house and they say Easter rhymes. They ask for eggs. The girls and women are whipped by the POMLAZKA. They give the boys eggs and the men some alcohol.
One of the customs of this day is that you have to wear something new not to be poo-pooed by the lamb. The other custom says that if the woman is not whipped, she will dry. This is the only day when men can beat women in public.

There are some other customs after Easter such as putting up a MAJKA, which is a trunk from a very tall tree decorated at the top with ribbons. This MAJKA must be watched by the men from the village. When it is stolen by the boys from the next village , it is a very bad reputation.

The last day of April, Czech people burn witches at the stake. It is a very old custom which meaning is to say goodbye to winter, too.

That is all for today. Have a very nice time and I will write soon again.

Love Renata

.

This is what Anastasia a greek student of Kavasila high school, wrote about Mrs Nada's Kadlecova visit to her school.

2006-05-04T21:29:00.000+02:00

Mrs Nada Kadlecova, the etwinning partner- teacher from Czech Republic, visited our school just before Easter holidays. She was very friendly and kind. She looked happy. I think, because she was with us ,here in Greece. We met her in the school library where she gave us small presents from our czech friends- partners. She, also, gave us a box of chocolates which disappeared immediately! We saw a DVD which she had brought for our school. It was about her country and the place where they live. I learnt many things about my partner,Martin, from her. About her school ,too.

I liked her very much. It was a very good idea to come at our school. Some students told me that she must be a nice teacher. They had a lesson with her. I dedicate the photo to her. It has been taken in the old city of Veria. I wish one day she comes again, but with our partners.It would be great if we met altogether!

National competition in Prague

2006-05-03T23:24:00.000+02:00

Karolina Buresova took part in the National Competition in English in Prague on 3rd May.

There were representatives from all the regions of our country. Although Karolina was one of the youngest, she did very well and was on 4th place. We hope that next year she will win.

My congratulations!!!

American relatives

2006-05-03T23:02:00.000+02:00

Some time after my article I got a letter from America from the relatives of Wallace Baumgardner. His daughter wrote one of the letters. She did not know how her father had died and so she was grateful that I had written my article. She recognized her father in one of the signatures. From time to time we exchange some e mails. I know that I have done something what my mum always wanted to do. I have found the relatives. The relatives of the brave soldiers who had brought freedom into my country. I always tell my students this story and show them all those pictures and signatures. We mustn´t forget. Our ancesters do not deserve it.

Day V is coming

2006-05-03T22:53:00.000+02:00

8th May is the Victory Day. It is the day when WWII finished. I always remember my dear mother who used to tell me about those horrible times, about the children who had died during last minutes of the war, about American soldiers who came to Plzen but were killed in the main square. Here is her story.

Wars are really so bad and useless and I hate them. During the war my mum lived in Pilsen, a town in the West of the Czech Republic. There was a factory SKODA which produced machines, I think locomotives and lorries. Then the German army came and the factory was transferred into war industry and produced anti aeronautical missiles. My uncle had to work in the factory. He was forced by the Germans like many other Czech men. Once he told me that when nobody had been looking (there were guards everywhere) he put sand into the missile to spoil it.
My mum was a teacher. She had to teach German. If she had refused, she would have been sent to Germany. It was called total embattled. Her school was on the outskirts of the town where only poor people lived in bungalows with no cellars. They had no chance to survive the bomb attack. The worst attacks from Allied bombers, English and American, came at the end of winter in 1945. One night there were so many attacks that my mum's family stayed in the cellar the whole night. The next morning when my mum came to school there were only five children from the thirty. Twenty-five children had been killed. My mum took the five kids out .They found some snow flakes and decorated empty desks. They put candles on the desks and went home. The school was closed for the rest of the war. I am crying even now while I am writing about this terrible story from the war. It is so touching and I remember my mum when she had told me it. I found some old pictures among my mum's documents and here is a photo of her with the class before the air attack .
My mother was a great story teller and it is a pity that she isn't alive. She would have deserved to celebrate the 61 st anniversary of the end of the WWII. That is why I am writing her memories instead of her.
Then April 1945 came and people could smell the freedom in the air. First American tanks arrived in Pilsen square and Czech people ran to greet them. My mother was young, heartbroken from the loss of her school children and she was so happy to see the liberators. She wanted to remember that moment all her life.
She took her work book. It was the book all the people had to have. She opened the book and the American soldiers wrote their names and addresses there. Suddenly she heard a noise and the soldier who was just writing his name fell dead on the ground. He was killed by a German sniper.
My mum wanted to find his family but she couldn't speak English and so it was not easy. I still have her book with the names and addresses of the American soldiers who liberated the west of our country. The soldier who was the last who signed the book was called Elmer D. Martin, I can also read the name Wallace Baumgardner from Astoria, Illinois and Edward Falishi from Wisconsin.
Wars are led by nations but ordinary people are those who suffer the most. And I can only wish to all of us to live our life in peace and freedom and that is why it is so important to write these memories as the memento and the warning.

2006-05-02T23:23:00.000+02:00

The end of my trip to Greece

I haven’t finished my diary from Greece yet. The last day after my birthday, I went to Thessaloniki. Despina Ganidou and her friend Despina, the headmistress, came for me to Veria in the morning.
It was so sad to say good buy to my friends Eleni and her husband in Veria. I wanted to tell them so many important things, but I couldn’t speak. It was too emotional. I was very sad that I was leaving my friends.
Thessaloniki is a very large city with about one million inhabitants and four hours were definitely not enough. But I was grateful for everything I could see in this beautiful place. First of all, we visited the old walls on the hill. These were Byzantine walls of Thessaloniki. I could admire the silhouette of the mount Olympus in the distance.
The next place which we visited was the famous White Tower, one of the important landmarks of the city. I was very interested in its long history. Thessaloniki is the city which is very close to our country. The two brothers Cyril and Methodus came from this place to our territory. They brought the alphabet and Christianity to our countries. They translated holy books.
I also visited the Archeological museum, two churches and one of the biggest and most beautiful squares in Europe Aristoteles Square. It is really very huge and interesting. The time was passing very quickly and at the end my new friends invited me for a nice lunch by the sea.
While we were eating we made some plans about the visit of Greek children in our school at the end of April. It was good. Although I wasn’t with my twin sister Eleni, I was still in touch with Greece and I was looking forward to coming Greek stay in my town.
Suddenly our eTwinning programme had a different image. It wasn’t only letter writing, we were real people and we were speaking about meeting of our students. It was so exciting. I think that we have done much more that the idea of the eTwinning cooperation was.

Polish Easter Traditions

2006-04-25T20:28:00.000+02:00

Well, Easter is over… unfortunately. It is always anticipated impatiently and then passes so quickly. Every student ( and a teacher) is waiting for this spring holiday to catch some breath and to have some fun. Why? Well…

Easter in Poland lasts two days. After long Lent, we celebrate the Holy Week starting with Palm Saturday. On that day worshippers bring to a church palms made of different sorts of painted grass or branches of catkins decorated with paper ribbons and flowers. The palms blessed by a priest and brought back home are thought to bring luck to all inhabitants all the year round.

Next important day is Holy Thursday. In churches bells fall silent and rattles and clappers take their place. On Good Friday Christian community commemorates Jesus’ path to crucification. In the evening many people go to church for a special service called “The Adoration of the Cross”.

The power of tradition is particularly visible on Holy Saturday, when crowds of people head for churches with beautiful baskets filled with food called “święconka”.

The preparation of the baskets is perhaps the most popular Easter ritual. The baskets, which are lined with white napkins, usually contain coloured hard-boiled eggs, bread, cold meats, horseradish, pepper, salt and of course – Easter sugar lamb. Another popular Polish tradition is painting Easter eggs – children like it very much. The easiest way to get eggs of a golden-brown colour is to put the eggs into a pot filled with water and onion skins. The longer the eggs are boiled the darker the colour they obtain. In some regions they scratch beautiful floral patterns on eggs boiled this way. After these preparations families go together to church bringing with them the food in their Easter baskets to be blessed by a priest and eaten next morning at Easter table. On Easter Sunday many families sit down to Easter table after the Resurrection Mass, which is held at dawn. The whole family gathered at the festive table pass around best wishes. Then, especially in big cities the whole family go for a walk from church to church to admire the decorated symbolic tombs of Christ.

The funniest moments, however, happen on Easter Monday or Wet Monday. In Poland it is called “Śmigus-dyngus” and you must be prepared to a decent shower of cold water, or in some social circles – sprinkle of perfumes. Which is better? Well… both are good I think, if the water doesn’t come in hectolitres nor the perfumes are mixed together and choking.

THOUGHTS ON NADA'S KADLECOVA VISIT TO VERIA ,KAVASSILA HIGH SCHOOL IN GREECE.

2006-04-25T12:52:00.000+02:00

On a sunny day, Nada my etwin sister, arrived at “Makedonia” airport in Thessaloniki. She looked ,exactly,like in the numerous photos she had sent me so far. In front of me, it was Nada in flesh. Our first meeting touched both of us a lot.
My husband drove us to our home city,Veria. I introduced her to my family,my parents, my sister. She was so talkative and friendly, as she had been during the endless hours of chatting on Skype,making plans for the etwinning project and exchanging experiences.I felt as if I had known her for ages and she became part of my family at once.
During her presense at my school, all the students were charmed by her.They wanted to speak with her and two lucky classes enjoyed a lesson with her! I , personally, admired the Czech teacher ,who, full of life and energy, was eager and willing to learn everything about our educational system way of life customs traditions.She never felt tired to answer questions about her country, her school, her way of life.
These four days we spent together,I believe, were very short time to share and exchange teaching ideas but enough to feel very close.I hope after the sightseeing in my area ,she has got a clearer idea of ancient greek history.
In future, I hope and wish to meet my sister Nada again, because now, I am sure I have something very precious. Her friendship!

Final Meeting of Comenius in Mittweida - my point of view

2006-04-20T16:08:00.000+02:00

It's been a long time since I published my last post so I decided to write here something more... and I got the idea that I could write about final meeting of Comenius in Mittweida (Germany).

Comenius was a program which started on 19.11.2003 and ended on 27.3.2006 - it's motto was "A democratic school for a new Europe" and it's sence was to improve the cooperation between schools and to make it possible for students to be respected when trying to change something in school.
Thanks to Comenius, also the students' council in our school was formed.
There were six school representing six countries altogether:

Städtisches Gymnasium Mittweida - Mittweida, Germany

Frederujsbirg Gymnasium og HF - Hillerod, Denmark

Liceo Linguistico Provinciale - Palermo, Italy

Zespol Skol Ogolnoksztalcacych - Warsaw, Poland

Madame de Stael College - Geneva, Switzerland

Gymnázium Česká Lípa - Česká Lípa, the Czech Republic

In every school, there was a meeting of Comenius, in Mittweida were two meetings - the first, and the final...

The final meeting was from 23.3.-27.3.2006. There were 3 people going to Comenius meeting and 5 people going to students' councils meeting which was organised for our students' council and for students' council from Mittweida. And there were 3 teachers going with us. I was going to the students' councils meeting.

We were leaving Česká Lípa on Thursday 23.3. at about 15:30. We went by a train to Děčín, then by an eurocity train to Dresden, then by an intercity train to Chemnitz and finally by a train to Mittweida - when we were going by the last train, to Mittweida, we went by a train which has two floors what was something so unknown for us - you can guess which floor we chose to sit. I also remember that - I have to note that nobody from us could speak German excellently - we heard "Mittweida" so we went down to the first floor and when the train stopped, we got off. ... But it seemed strange to us. It seemed so little, so abandoned - just so strange that it should be a train station in a city with about 60 000 people. So one boy from our group went to see the writing on the station - and he screamed at us "Alt Mittweida (note: Alt Mittweida = Old Mittweida)!" So all 11 people who got off the train almost like by an order got very quickly back... I have to say that when we told our German friends about that, they seemed to have fun...

So finally, we got to Mittweida - honestly, it wasn't bad to know we are there... There, it was so confusing... All people hugging, shaking hands, everyone speaking at the very same time... and this all in a foreign language (and after we still spoke Czech in the train...) But it got better very soon. When someone called "Karolina" (ok, don't ask about their pronouncation of our names - but it was the lowest important problem), I immediately came to him. Then I realised that there was a girl who told him my name and that she was my host... Before we went to Mittweida, I got a letter from girl called Ewelina telling me that I will live by her - so I wasn't suprised. The girl looked very nice, was quite small with long brown hair and had piercings in her face. She asked me if we would go. I agreed, quickly said "Bye" to my friends and left the train station with her. We went to her car and drove 'home' - Ewelina wrote me she was 18 so I knew it was possible that she would drive a car. She also wrote me she lived about 5 mins (I supposed it means minutes) from school and that she is the only child. Everything seemed OK - the girl said me it would take about 15 minutes to get home so I though she did a little mistake in the letter.

We didn't live in Mittweida but in Burgstadt which is a little bit more than 15 km from Mittweida - I don't know exactly. The way took us about 20 minutes. We were speaking almost all the way. My experiences with Germans speaking English weren't very good but the girl spoke English very well. Then we came home and I met her tom-cat, Numa. Then, she introduced me to her mum. Her mum couldn't speak an English word so we "communicated" by mime (but we understood each other) - or if it was possible, the girl was translating for us - but she was very nice. The girl showed me my room - she apologized for the room being messy but the room seemed beautiful to me. It was very small, just 'bed', a little table and some decorations - but I liked it very much. I ate pizza for dinner and then we went to meet the girl's friends.

We met the girl's friends in one club. We spoke to them and it was a very nice surprise for me that they tried to speak English - either to me or between themselves. They were interested in my opinions about Germany and about the Czech Republic and we talked and talked... After some time, we went home and went to sleep soon.

Next day, we got up, I ate my breakfast, we both got us ready and then my host girl took me to school. We both supposed that I am going to Dresden in the afternoon.
Well, we got to school. There, I got to know that only people who are in Comenius Project may go to Dresden - really great begging of the day. Our students' councils had a special program - firt, they showed us their school and then, in the morning, we spoke about what changed in our schools from Comenius meeting in Česká Lípa (which took place on 24.11.-28.11.2005) and about free time activities which are at our schools during school years. When we finished, it was almost time to eat - and they prepared really great lunch. There were lots of different cakes, sweets, pies etc. It was really fine.

In the afternoon, we went to play bowling. It was fine... but don't even ask about my score... OK, it could be worse... We mainly talked there - about some interesting topics - maybe, it will be better if I say only this... But when I was talking to Marie and another girl - I don't remember her name, two German girls... there was one big surprise for me: I got to know that I wasn't living by Ewelina but by Livia. From that time, I am going to introduce to everyone who I don't know also if I think I know who the person is...

After bowling, we were free - it was 5 p.m. already. I wanted to call Livia to tell her we had just finished - but my telephone didn't want to work... Great, this always cheers up... So I had to lend a telephone and then I waited. Livia arrived after almost three quarters of hour but I wasn't agry as I usually am. Not only because I didn't want to be, I simply wasn't... We went to meet some Livia's friends near Mittweida. Livia told me we had to wait for her friend and her guest (who was in Dresden) and then we all would go to Chemnitz where we were supposed to meet with others. After some time, it could be about hour and a half, Livia's friend called so we went to pick them up. I was introduced to Dietlind and her guest, Polish girl Pasza. Then, we all went to our home and then to Chemnitz.

In Chemnitz, Dietlind took Pasza to the club while we - I and Livia - were looking for a parking place. It was full everywhere but after about ten minutes we found one free place. Livia was joking - she said "We got a park place. We won a lottery." Then we met Dietlind and we three went to a little walk and to McDonald's. We came to the club later but I didn't mind it. I enjoyed the time I spent by talking to Livia and Dietlind - we spoke mainly about schools in Germany and in the Czech Republic and I have found out many interesting things. In the club, there were many people but I talked to two German girls, Marie and another one - unfortunatelly, I already forgot her name. We spoke about everything and had a really great time. We left the club after midnight and went home. Normally, I don't have problems with going to bed late - but this day, I was sooo tired I wanted to go to sleep.

On Saturday, we went to school... to find out that I shouldn't be at school... or better, that I should come in the afternoon. Oh, how I love things like this... So Livia took me to their shopping-center near Chemnitz. It was big but great in there. We again spent a lot of time talking until it was the noon and Livia had to take me to school.
In the school, we tried to think out how our students' councils could continue our cooperations - because Comenius Project ended but we wouldn't like also the cooperation between students' councils to end.
Then, there were some presentations from every school and all teachers talked about what they think about the project and if it helped etc. Our students' councils also had one special presentation about our cooperation. Between presentations, there were people singing songs or playing the piano etc.
After all presentations, we were free and I went with Livia to her friends again. It never stopped to be fun for me. In the evening, Livia took me to a "disco" where I was supposed to meet with others but she disclaimed to go with me. She only promised she would come later. Almost all the evening, I chatted with Betty, who was another German girl - we spoke about everything and I - again - enjoyed it very much. Livia came after about two hours and we went home - we took Betty and her guest - Honza (who was also from our school) to Alt Mittweida and then went home.

On Sunday, I was again free. Livia showed me Burgstadt, we chatted a little more - and then, it was time to leave. We could - like others - stay in Mittweida till Monday but some students from our school had some important exams on Monday so our teachers decided to leave on Sunday. Livia took me to the train station. Almost everybody else was already there and we were there much sooner than we had to be... We talked and talked for so long time and then everyone was hugging everyone, still saying "Bye!" that we nearly missed the train...
And then we went by train from Mittweida to Chemnitz... then we went by train to Dresden... then we went by train to Děčín... then we went by train to - I think - Bakov nad Jizerou... then we went by train to Česká Lípa... and then we were at home.
The adventure has ended.

Many time was spent by chatting which never stopped to be fun... Many new friends have met... Sometimes, there were funny moments - mistakes, poeple speaking to wrong people by wrong language... There were many surprises... There were many things to learn... There isn't word which would be enough for that meeting - but you may try to choose one... For example: Excellent, Amazing, Wonderful, Breathtaking, ...

I liked it all very much. I met great people, could do something useful, learnt a lot, practised my English, ... I wrote so much but it is nothing if I think about everything what happened in Mittweida or on the way there and back...
If I had a chance, I would surely go there again. And if I will get a chance go get into another project like this, I will surely accept it. My first "exam" will be our Greek friends coming on Tuesday... and then? Who can know...?

Happy Easter our dear Greek friends

2006-04-20T11:23:00.000+02:00

This week our dear Greek friends are celebrating Easter . It is a very important time in Greece because families are together and they are enjoying this time very much. We have learned a lot about Easter and there is more information about this festival from my friend Eleni.

Today, Big Thursday , I am going to dye the eggs red and make a tsoureki. In the evening we will go to the village to attend the religious service there. Jesus Christ is crucified today according to the Orthodox church and we will offer Him flowers at church. The priest will get his body from the cross and women will stay at church all night to keep the dead body. The biggest mourning in the Orthodox starts tonight and ends tomorrow with the Epitaph. The epitaph is Christ’s dead body ,decorated with many flowers. On good Friday evening . There is a big procession of people that accompany the dead Christ to his grave. The priest and a choir sing psalms and hymns in the streets and I can say that there is a mystagogy that night.
So I will be very busy the following days. On Saturday and Sunday I will be at the village to celebrate Easter .I hope you are well all these days and take care of yourself and your husband. Keep in mind that our closest persons need our attention and affection.

Happy Easter to all our dear friends and students in Kavasila High School and Veria.

Czech students and teachers from Gymnasium Ceska Lipa are sending you best wishes.

Happy birthday to you

2006-04-19T22:50:00.000+02:00

On Saturday evening all my friends invited me to the pub. I didn't know that they wanted to celebrate my birthday at the same time. It was a lovely evening. I had a chance to eat different seafood. Octupus, shripms, fish and many other things which I do not remember the name.

At midnight, the waiter brought a pink cake with a rose and a candle shaped as a questionmark. I was really touched. I started crying. It was for the first time since my mum had died when I had a birthday cake. I will never forget this beautiful moment. We talked for a long time and we went to bed very late. It was my last evening in Greece.

Mountains

2006-04-19T22:39:00.000+02:00

In Veria and all around ,you can see a lot of mountains. These beautiful giants are standing in magnificent silence and looking at you. If I had had more time, I would have climbed some of them. But I could only admire them every morning when we were leaving the mountain house where we stayed during nights.

We are cooking

2006-04-19T22:25:00.000+02:00

Because we are doing a part of the project about Czech and Greek dishes, my friend Eleni tried to cook some Greek dishes for me. One of them was Pastitsio, which I really liked and realized that I would be able to make it.

I wrote down the recipe and I will definitely try it at home. During my stay I tried also other things like feta cheese with chilly pepers on a piece of bread whashed by UZO or Cipro. I really love Greek salad and I will prepare it at home to remind me of the time I spent in Greece. My friends also took me to the fast food restaurant to try souvlaki and gyros. I must say that Greek cuisine is very interesting and good.

History is all around you

2006-04-19T21:57:00.000+02:00

When you are in Greece, you can see history everywhere. In old narrow streets of Veria, you can see old Makedonian doors, old family churches, churches full of coloured icons and pictures, deserted Jewish houses, old bridges. Not far from Veria there is one of the most interesting places in Greece. Vergina.

I have heard about this place a lot but when I stood in front of the door of Philip II's tomb, I couldn't speak. I thought about all those years which had passed from his death. I remembered the film Alexander the Great and I wanted to see it again. I wanted to live that time again

on the screen of the Tv. I also could admire all those things which had been found in the tomb. Golden jewellery, pots, boxes and a lot of wreaths. One of them was made of golden oak leaves. Why oak? I didn't know that the oak is the symbol of Makedonia.

Then we went to see the Palace and the theatre when Philip II had been killed.
It was my best birthday present which I got from my friend to take me here. To let me see these things. Thank you for that once more.

Greek People

2006-04-19T21:46:00.000+02:00

My host family was so nice that I didn´t feel lonely at all and I had always something to do.

One of my biggest experiences was Thursday evening when I went to the dancing club with Eleni and her husband George. I only wanted to take some pictures, but suddenly I was dancing with the others.

About fifty people of all ages meet twice a week in the gym and they practise Greek dances. When there are some celebrations, they dance them in public. If I lived there in Veria, I would go to the dancing club, too. What I really like was the different age of the dancers. There were young and oldish people, men and women, all together.

In the library

2006-04-18T23:28:00.000+02:00

We have spent nice moments together in the library. The next day almost all the students brought me some presents for my students again. It was hard to leave them. The next day I was very happy when they said hello to me in the corridors when we met. I was like at our school. The library is really the heart of the school. I really liked this place very much. My dear friend Eleni was a good guide and she taught me some more Greek words. I can count up to one hundred now. Kalinichta. Efcharisto. Thank you for everything.

Part two- old Greek game

2006-04-18T23:17:00.000+02:00

Kostas is a PE teacher from Kavasila High School who has a project with our PE teacher Alena Mayova. Their topic is about old games.

I was very curious if they have learnt the Czech game which we had called Beating out.

It is true that I had to help them with some details. Then the students showed me the game called Fainida which had been the one sent to our school. I could see that the Greek game was more familiar to them and they were very good at it. The first day at school was very nice and I had a feeling that I had known them for a long time.

My diary from a Greek trip part one

2006-04-18T22:52:00.000+02:00

The first day 13th April. The morning is very cold but I am looking forward to visiting the school which I know only from the internet eTwinning programme.Kavasila High School.

My friend Eleni Kostopulou is driving me to school from the mountain house where I have spent the first night in Greece. We stop in a small bakery for breakfast. I am learning another Greek word PSOMI which means bread. We are eating cheese pie and hurrying to school.

I am a bit nervous from all the things which are waiting for me today. Eleni is taking me to the headmaster´s office and I can see a very handsome tall man with white hair. His name is Paschalis and he is the very important person at school. While we are drinking a cup of coffee, other teachers are coming to greet me and they all are very friendly. I can see that they all have been informed about my visit. I try to practice my few Greek words. Kalimera. Ty kanete. Ja su. Everybody is very friendly.

Here is the bell and we are going to the classroom. My first meeting Greek children face to face. They are a bit shy and I have to ask them first. Later they dare to ask me some questions about the Czech Republic.

They want to know about our school as much as possible.

After the main break I am going to the library and I am meeting our partner students. I have some presents for them from my students and I feel like Santa Claus. We are watching a DVD about Ceska Lipa and I am telling them some details. They are nice and want to know everything. Anastazia wants to know more about her pen friend Martin from my group. The visit in the school was a great experience for me. I was glad that I could be there.

I am very impressed by the librarian Eleni who is in the eTwinning project with our librarian Renata. Eleni is very attractive and she is very patient with all the students who are coming to the library during breaks and want to find some information. She has a kind word for everyone. I can see that she is a friend for all the teachers too and helps everybody at school.