Letter from Italy

We are taking 6 students to Estonia. By the way these are their names ( you'll read their surname first) :
Canè Alessandro
D’Alessandro Salvatore ( savio_18@hotmail.it)
Mazza Emmanuel ( dragon_1992@libero.it)
Territo Ivan (fhyrel@hotmail.it) I'm not too sure about this address
Smedescu Bogdan ( bogdansmedescu@gmail.com)
Rezgui Mohamed (rez_mohamed@hotmail.it)
They are all boys, the oldest one is Alessandro Canè who is 20 years old. ( I hope it's ok for you).

A Christmas Day

On 9th December, our school had a Christmas Day. Firstly, many students came to school dressed up as dwarfs. Most younger students were wearing red clothes and dwarf hats. Some even played little Santas. It was also popular with older students to dress up as dwarfs.

Secondly, we had a Christmas fair. Everyone, who had something to sell, could sell these things to other students or even teachers. There were mostly goods, which students had baked specially for the fair, but there were also some small things. About 25 students had something to sell. When we had breaks from lessons, we could visit the fair, so it wasn’t during the lessons. It was very difficult to move between the stalls at the fair, beacause there were too many students, who wanted to buy or sell something. So, when we walked through the school, we could see different students dressed like dwarfs and visiting the fair. I think that day was full of joy and happiness.

One of the remarkable things, which is worth mentioning, was a donation box. It was for Narva Youth Centre. Everyone, who put some money in it, helped a little bit those children, who do not have so good living conditions in Narva. I think, it was very sweet and I heard that our school donated a lot to this centre.

Forum

The project forum is ready to be used! Click on the link in the margin and you are there!

Turkish week

In our school there was a week dedicated to Turkey, from 23rd to 27th November. It was an interesting and educative event. Due to this different activities were held.

The purpose of the week was to introduce Turkey and it`s culture to all the students in our school. During the breaks the school radio played captivating Turkish music. Most of the students enjoyed it and became more interested in Turkey and its culture.

The members of the Comenius international project, visited each form's class teacher`s lessons and introduced Turkish culture, traditions and the local people in this unique country. We talked about the basic information, about the country`s recent history, extremely friendly people, Turkish religion , Atatürk aka Mustafa Kemal Atatürk . It was a good experience for all of us, who had to talk in front of the class. Those who had an opportunity to talk to the younger forms, where lucky because youngsters knew less about Turkey and were not able to ask difficult questions. At the end of the lessons the quiz was carried out. This way we had a chance to see how well the students had been listening and also how much they knew themselves. The winner of the school was Kristjan Pulk. Turkish Embassy had supported us with the awards for the winners.Now the students who visited the classes and made a research about Turkey are waiting for the feedback from the teachers and are hoping that they managed well. At elementary school we didn`t carry out the quiz, but the teachers told them a Turkish fairy tale.
From Tuesday till Friday the labels with Turkish phrases were seen on the walls of the school.

Also, there were some pictures about the trip to Turkey on the wall in the student`s corner, so, every student had a chance to see the pictures themselves.

The students, who had a great opportunity to visit Turkey and some of the students who are also in this project, made a power point presentation about their trip and talked about it to the secondary school students on Friday. During this thematic event the secondary school had a chance to see Turkish women`s traditional clothes (teacher Merike Sikk on the picture) and also belly dance.

Belly dancers were our school students, who had prepared a few Turkish dances. We aslo had a guest from the Turkish Embassy.

Özgür Cakar (on the picture with the headmaster Arvo Pani) said that he was pleasantly surprised to see our knowledge about Turkey. During this gathering we also congratulated the winners of the quiz from every class.
We all think that this week, dedicated to Turkey, went well, because the main purpose was achieved- students got more interested in Turkey and got rid of prejudices.

by Hanna and Laura

30th November 2009

Firstly, I would like to explain, why this blog entry is in English. We decided to start writing here also in English, as the project page is in English and so we don't have to do all the work twice.
Last week, we had a Turkish week at our school and soon Laura and Hanna are going to write about it as well.
Generally, all the students were pleased with the week.
We also had 1 guest, Özgür Cakar, who is the first secretary of the Turkish Embassy. He was really surprised to see how much we knew and what we had done for the week.
All in all, we didn't have very much time to discuss about the week in the class, because the Turkish Embassy had asked us to a little concert and reception. Some of us accepted the opportunity to experience something extraordinary.
The concert and recieption took place in the house of the Brotherhood of Black Heads. The whole hall was full of people and there were even Arnold and Ingrid Rüütel. At the concert there were 2 Turkish musicians - Ahmet Kanneci, who played the guitar and Ekrem Öztan, who played the clarinet. The sound of the duo was really nice and sometimes even a bit hypnotic. It seemed that the audience enjoyed them as well, as the applause seemed to be endless. Finally, when the concert ended, there was a little reception. Unfortunately the room was a bit too small for such a big crowd. We had an opportunity to taste some Turkish snacks as well, but as first of them contained raw fish, then we( students) were not very fond of it.
Here is also a little video of the duo. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HpManr_Sq5M

I am quite sure, that all the people who chose to attend the event, were very satisfied with it. Big thanks to the Turkish Embassy, who gave us such a great opportunity and who also helped us a lot with the Turkish week. :)