Gardering project

One of the greatest traditions of spring is creation of new life, so we (teachers and volunteers) decided to create a new garden in kindergarten’s classes.

In this post we will explain, step by step the process that we followed to plant different kinds of plants. How the children help us or how we help the children and how the plants are growing up.First we can thank our organization STRIM who allowed us to start this project and mostly financed it. 

 With this money we could provide different seeds like: Rzezucha, Owies Wielkanocny, cebula plants, flowers but also some material such as pot (szklarnia) and ground.

To begin, we explain kids (even if a lot of them already knew) what a plant need to grow up and how to take care of it every day. Then, with kids, we put few ground in each pot and we rolled out everywhere with our fingers. It was really funny because some kids had ground on their faces (but not so funny because we had to clean it!!).

After, we gave to each kids, some seeds or 3 cebula plant then they could see closer how little the main factor of a plant is. Delicately they disposed all they had in their hands and we recovered the seeds with another layer of ground. Kids were very proud to have such an important responsibility. Some of them even wanted to add more and more seeds after the last layer of ground.

Finally, some kids, with the help of the watering can, gave water to the plans and we explain them that to not let them ted, they would have to repeat this action every day but also that the plants have to be exposed to the sun on the parapet.

Now, our plants grew up thank to kids who are taking care of them as much as they can. After weekend we are always surprised when we discover the change. Now our classes are full of color and ready to spend a wonderful spring.

See you in the next projects: Maja, Clara Alberto

Marzanna's day, first day of spring!

As foreing people we were suprised about the tradition which is connected with the first day of spring that you probably know well. 

On 21st of March all kids from our kindergarten made a colourful parade with balloons and handmade dolls. Alberto with the help of the teacher Marzena made the biggest doll which is traditionnaly called Marzanna. 

Here you can see the cretiaon process: 

Marzanna - she is often described as a demon and is associated with death, winter and nightmares. In Slavic rites the death of Marzanna towards the end of winter is juxtaposed against the birth of Jarilo – a Slavic god representing the coming of spring.

According to the Polish historical writer Jan Dlugosz (1415-1480) the burning of the straw doll was an ancient tradition that linked it to the pagan ceremonies celebrated during the times of Polish King Mieszko I (922 -992).
In modern times the rituals associated with Marzanna have lost their sacred character and are a pastime – an occasion to have fun and celebrate the beginning of spring. The tradition is usually celebrated around the spring equinox (March 21). Usually schoolchildren and young people participate in the celebrations alongside local folklore groups and other residents.
Marzanna is set aflame, sometimes with herbs, and with her burning, springtime is beckoned to come. Then, for the bearers of the effigy to be rid of the death and illness that Marzanna represents, they throw her into a river to “drown” her or there is tradition of burning.

Kids of kindergarten 176 and school went to the fire station to burn our dolls. Every class of kindergarten and school had their own ballons with colours, the idea of Marzena wanted to represent the rainbow to invite spring to this place, say welcome to the warm spring days!




Big Marzanna opened the parade of all the children of kindergarten and school!

 

When we arrived to the fire station, as the tradition says, all the Marzannas were put together and firemen  burned them and as you can see in the photos a lot of children attended to this event.



Finally, all Marzannas were reduced to ashes. What a shame! All of us hope that this tradition will bring the sun from now on, but... we are still waiting!

See you soon with gardering activities!

Clara, Maja, Alberto.

Another week without Pan Alberto

     Our dear spanish Pan Alberto was in Torun this week for a training so only girls were in the kindergarten!! It's the best moment for the International Woman's Day :)
    We've got flowers, sweets and greetings from boys :) It was very nice and pleasent!

    In the end of the week we invited Mikolaj for a workshop with kids.
Mikolaj is a great polish boy who is providing workshop for us and helping to prepare performances with juggling, clowns and other circus staff. Kids of group 7 were crazy about discovering the circus world. They try to work with scarves and balls for juggling, they made some acrobatics and enjoyed our small performance also. It was a great experience not only for children but also for us because it inspire us to create something more.

The topic of this week was Spring and especially flowers and plants. So our super coordinator Pani Marzena had the brillant idea of planting some flowers and vegetables with our kids. 
On friday we had planted different types of seeds. Here you can see some steps of the work. We hope to get success at the end. We are gardeners!!

 Maja and Clara with group 7 and group 4 had fun today and were glad to share something together. Next week Alberto has a big challenge to do the same with group 6!!! 
We will show you the result in several weeks. 

Maja and Clara :) 

Not boring everyday life

   From the beginning you can think, that every day in kindergarten is looking like previous one. But, we will try to prove the oposite!
   Guests are always welcome in our kindergarten-family, especially when it is guests from theatre! Last week we had great performance about pirates. Together we´ve learned how to name different parts of ship and what we have to scream to the captain: " Yes, captain!"

  Spring is coming, holidays are keep going...we have great tradition to gratulate everybody who has birthday, wish all the best and sing a song "Sto lat!" Using a possibility, we want to say "Happy birthday, Basia!" one more time! By the way, sweets on birthday is also a great tradition!

  Topic of previous week were professions, future choice if work. And our teachers provided interesting workshops to show children these jobs in real life. They were coming to shop, driving a car and even trying to help with teacher´s work!

  

Volunteers started to prepare for the Easter, big Easter-eggs will be a great decoration for the homies.

A bit of creativity, time and passion will create a good mood for holidays! =)

Hoping for the sun and great spring in Poland!

Your volunteers Maja, Clara, Alberto.