Verónica Díez Berrendero, Beatriz Fernández Flores, María Hernández Fernández-Shaw, Ester Escobar Guerrero, Katrin Wochele, Constanze Göpfrich

Today we had to get up very early. Earlier than the other days, but this morning we drove to the preschool and we met the children for the first time. Everyone was very excited!

When we arrived every group of us (A1,A2,B1,...) got a list of 8 names from the children.

Every group got a room to do the activities we had planned on Friday afternoon. It was mostly ice-breaking activities, like introducing ourselves, let the kids introduce themselves to us and getting to know about the different countries and languages.

For example: One group made instruments with the children out of sticks and a string with bottle caps. And then the children and the teachers sang their names in a rhythm with the music instruments.

Another group sang a welcoming song with “Hello” in all the languages that were represented in the group: “Sia! Labas! Bonjour! Guten Tag! Hoiendag! Buenos dias!”

Also we made them curious for our next visit on Wednesday and the activities we were going to do then.

The kids liked it a lot and they were very excited and curious about what was going to happen that day.

It was hard for some of us to understand and interact with the children because of the many different languages, but in the end it worked out well.

After we were done we went to the park of the castle in Gesves and each group looked for a place for their activities on Wednesday. The place each group chose was important and special for their activities.  It’s the “nest” of the children.

One group chose a place on the grass and used trees to limit the space, another group used a cave in a wall to give the children a “nest”.

In the afternoon each country which is represented here, made a short presentation about the educational system in their country.

Afterwards we had to meet up in our groups (A1,A2,B1,…) and we discussed about similarities, differences, pros and cons about each system. In the end we put our opinion on posters.

It was very interesting to get to know the educational systems of each country and to see how different most of them were. It became also clear how the distance between the countries made the differences bigger or smaller. We enjoyed discussing about it.

For example about different opening and closing times, salaries, working conditions and about different types of groups, like open and closed groups of children in kindergartens or preschools.

It was a really long day and we are tired now, but we are so excited to meet the children again on Wednesday.

In the evening the students from Belgium prepared dinner. It was called “Salad from Liège” It was reaaaaaally delicious.

And then the Lithuanian team prepared the evening with a lot of fun activities for us. Even though we were tired we liked the quiz about Lithuania and the Lithuanian games we played.