Week 12&13 Virala&Tanttala :)

Week 12 Viralan koulu

It was a little bit surprising to me that they were not aware of my visit to the school or they'd forgotten?! Nevertheless, I was quickly welcomed and accepted by the three teachers and their students. 

I told them about me, my country and its nature, and my personal interests. So, right away on the next day we wrote some "blackout poems". I presented my alphabet and wrote some names in Bulgarian as a sign of the cultural and linguistic difference. I left them few children's books in Bulgarian (as souvenirs). 

I felt there like I was a teacher assistant because I was checking homework, monitoring the class for any difficulties in maths, and assisting them in finding solutions. At the same time the head teacher was able to teach a new lesson. On the contrary I can't imagine that just one of the teachers is having 4 classes (3rd, 4th, 5th, and 6th) simultaneously, teaches the 3rd graders maths and 6th graders history! Well, in Viralan koulu that's possible but as the teacher confirmed:"It's tough." So I think they really need some additional school help. I'm ready to be that worker just to know. 

Additionally, I'm inspired by a freelance contemporary artist I met in Virala. She integrates dancing moves into educational experience and gave me some ideas for teaching numbers, letters, or literature and how to practice all that with students of different ages and learning abilities. Yes!

On the whole, it's definitely somewhat an unusual, very interesting, and important school. I'm glad I had the chance to spend some time there and honestly I look forward for any further meeting. I'm available for that school. I liked it from the first day. 

For Easter here I baked traditional Bulgarian sweet Easter bread called "kozunak" (well, I put also some Finnish fruit jam- puolukkahilo:))

Week 13 Tanttalan koulu 

I spent 4 school days in Tanttalan koulu, a very small unique place for its number of students and educational building. 

On Tuesday in the morning classes I presented Bulgaria and played traditional bag-pipe folk music for the students (4-6th grade). Later they decorated the classroom with lots of "color paper spring flowers" under my tutorial from the document camera (pictures above).

On Wednesday the school had a sport day. I showed  a game to the kids until the hall was ready for floorball and gymnastics. The game is called "kralju portalju" (king at the gates"). It's a very common and traditional game in Bulgaria:

On Thursday I helped in English classes when I played board games and used the school iPads for one vocabulary game with the students. I stayed until noon, because the head teacher was sick, so we all left school earlier. 

On Friday those wonderful kids (4-6th grade, about 18 pupils together) wrote "blackout poems"! in Finnish!! (I copied Hans C. Andersen's book of fairly tales I found in the old school library!!!) 

Overall, good week we all practiced and cooperated. Here are some of the results:

 What's next? In April: More exciting moments- traveling, lots of lots of traveling!!!!!!!!!!!!