OUR PROJECT COOPERATIVE MINDFUL POEM

Grateful for what?

“A grateful heart is the beginning of the path to greatness. It's an expression of humility. Faith is a foundation for the development of virtues such as courage, satisfaction, happiness, love and well-being.”

James E. Faust

Living your life gratefully helps you notice small gains, such as when the bus shows up just in time, a stranger holding the door for you, or the sun shining through your window when you wake up in the morning.

 

We asked our students what they were grateful for in their lives to raise awareness about it.

HAPPY ETWİNNİNG DAY!!!

Sibel Yanardağ

                           

 

 It's eTwinning Day! Thank you to the eTwinning platform, which brings us together from different countries of Europe! He brought together idealistic teachers from different countries and developed our vision. It's great to be part of and feel part of the most exciting learning community in Europe!Working together, producing activities together, 21. learn century skills...See that distances don't matter to move together...Thank you etwinning for giving us this opportunity!

Sibel Yanardağ

"Curiosity is a great attitude towards practicing Mindfulness, and towards living life in general". This is what our special guest, Duygu Badur, told us during this excellent meeting.

Mindfulness is not there to tell you you won't have problems or that you won't be stressed out.

Mindfulness is not there to tell you that you HAVE TO be happy all the time. 

Mindfulness is there to tell you that you are a mix of different emotions and states of mind, like this jar is full of small pieces of glitter:

When you're fully involved, or trapped, in your emotions is like when you shake this jar: you won't be able to see things clearly.

All you need to do is STOP, and observe your emotions calm down, like glitter falls down on the bottom of the jar.

And if you ever feel trapped in your jar ... just open the lid, get out, and look at it from outside!

 

Tomorrow we're holding our last group webinar.

At the end of our project, we're meeting a Mindfulness Practitioner from Turkey, who will point out some relevant points and give us useful tips related to being mindful in our daily lives. 

It'll surely be a great meeting!

Celebrating Children's Day

 Last Tuesday, April 20, we celebrated Children's Day in a very special way.

First, Sibel's students gave us a wonderful presentation on the importance of Children's Day in Turkey.

Afterwards, all the schools participating in the online meeting made a presentation of their famous person as a child, for the rest to guess.

Children and teachers had a very pleasant time.

Thank you all for these moments of sharing, which is the soul of our project.

See you soon, colleagues!

FMV IŞIK SCHOOLS ISTANBUL/TURKEY

 April 23 CHİLDREN'S DAY!

Dear All,

This week, we came together with our project partners and students to celebrate National Sovereignty and children's Day on April 23. It was invaluable to welcome children around the world to our country and celebrate this enthusiasm together. We are very, very grateful that you shared this feeling with us and erased the distances.

Ataturk, the founder of the Republic of Turkey, said that children will shape the world of the future.Children who will shape this world, you are all the hope of the future! I wish everyone to find little happiness like children in these difficult days.

“We are the children of the world. We lean on the world, and the world leans on us. Whether the world is beautiful, vibrant, green or dry-roasted depends on the path we Yesil walk. “(Thich Nhat Hanh)

 

Happy National Sovereignty and Children's Day!

 An inspiring challenge

    Yesterday, Tuesday 13th April, was a special day at our school. We held a two-side competition with Alessandra's Italian squad. The session started with some technical problems on our side, but in the end, we managed to sort them out. The Kahoot competition was exciting and inspiring. The only problem seemed to be the overexcitement of the students. The reason for this, is their love of Kahoot competitions and this new international experience for all of them.

    It was a good start for future projects and the internationalization of our school.

 

            The background noise speaks for itself. It sounds just like a Beatles'                    concert in the sixties!

 

April 13, 2021

It's the end of a school day. 1 pm. 

It's a Tuesday, which in our language is called "Martedì" (meaning: the day of Mars, the ancient Rome God of War).

Tuesdays are always somewhat messy. Chaotic. Sometimes you can feel that 'bellicose' spirit in the air.

It looks like the perfect day for a competition with our friends who live on the other side of the pond (the mediterranean Sea): our Spanish partners with their masters: teachers Salvador and Francisco.

Connection on ... 3...2...1... go! The battle starts, and on both sides there are moments of concentration and exultation.

Time goes by so fast, when you're having fun.

But in the end, eyes sparkle and hearts are full

Magic happened again. 

And we're so thankful for that.

 Today our students from Italy and Spain enjoyed an enduring time together, sharing a Kahoot game which was hard-fought.

 

Even if we have to deal with distance and CoVID restrictions we can keep on having fun together, experiencing moments that we will definitely treasure for the rest of our lives.

        At "FMV Işık Schools(İstanbul/Turkey)" this week, we did an "mindfulness" exercise in our zoom class. It was a different experience for all of us. 

       We moved away from the negative effects of the pandemic, and our project set its purpose. It was an unusual experience for some of us.Mindfulness, by training us to pay attention moment by moment to where we are and what we are doing, mindfulness can help us choose how to behave, poke (or shake) us out of Autopilot mode.By teaching children meditation and mindfulness skills, we help them improve their well-being and enable them to meet the stresses of the world with presence, self-compassion and openness.

        When we teach children mindfulness, we give them the tools they need to build confidence, cope with stress and relate to uncomfortable or challenging moments. The earlier we do this in their young lives, the greater the opportunity to help them develop endurance and develop and improve mindfulness practices as they mature.

Sibel Yanardağ

 March 26, 2021

We had a great meeting tonight.

We means: we students and teachers. 

One hour together, introducing ourselves, getting to know each other a bit better (both teachers and students). It's a Friday, the start of a weekend. 

We could have been anywhere else, but choose to stay here, on a platform, to stay with our friends from all over Europe. To see and hear from them.

A bit of shyness at the beginning ... an explosion of happiness and gratitude for this chance at the end.

The Guest House

This being human is a guest house.

Every morning a new arrival.

A joy, a depression, a meanness,

some momentary awareness comes

as an unexpected visitor.

Welcome and entertain them all!

Even if they’re a crowd of sorrows,

who violently sweep your house

empty of its furniture,

still, treat each guest honorably.

He may be clearing you out

for some new delight.

The dark thought, the shame, the malice,

meet them at the door laughing,

and invite them in.

Be grateful for whoever comes,

because each has been sent as a guide from beyond.

(Rumi)

And so we are.

Thankful for the lessons we are learning and the people we are knowing.

26th March online meeting

 

I.C. 'L. Pirandello' - Fonte Nuova (Rome - ITALY)

For our eTwinning Project, we learnt some Cybersafety best practices. Then, we created an animation using Plotagon  ... it was the first time with this app, and it was real fun! :-)

Animation on Cybersafety tips

 March 9th, 2021

Today, at 'Luigi Pirandello' middle school in Fonte Nuova (Rome, ITALY)  we did some activities in class: watching an animation about Internet Safety Rules, and after that we worked on some interactive worksheets to see how much we learnt about some important basic rules to stay safe online.

Here is a video about our lesson:

If you want to have fun and learn something new, here is the link to a KAHOOT! game we played on February 9th to celebrate the Safer Internet Day: 

Safer Internet Day KAHOOT

March, 1 2021

During the first half of this month, our students will focus on Cybersafety and Netiquette, two very important issues nowadays, where the World Wide Web has entered our lives and plays a key role in many of our daily activities.

Our students are going to prepare animations about these topics. 

We already started to speak about them during our online lesson on February 9, when we decided to celebrate together the Safer Internet Day.

[You can watch the video of our lesson here: 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZTnqKelRIo4&t=7s ]

It'll surely be great fun!😎

... to be continued ... 

 

 

Our students designed logos which might represent the nature of our project.

Have a look round at their works in this virtual exhibtion tour!

Link to our VIRTUAL EXHIBITION 

February, 19 2021

It's Friday evening, 7 p.m. 

A group of passionate teachers from Spain, Portugal, Italy, Poland, Romania and Turkey are meeting on Zoom platform.

It's not my first eTwinning Project, though one of the first projects I'm taking part in. And the feeling I've had throughout the whole meeting was like I was finally seeing a group of old friends I haven't been seeing for a while. 

I'm sure the project's topic is not an ordinary one. And I'm sure, too, is gonna take us closer and closer.

Dealing with emotions, speaking and experimenting them with our students, is gonna make us better human beings.

That's what I feel. Or, at least, what I hope.

Take care 💟

teacher Alessandra  

Here's the link to our teachers' meeting video: 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-zgljmKyHAA 

 

 Introduction video of our project!