"Project entitled ""Children in the forest - prevention of nature deficit disorders"" was carried out by two schools: the Private Primary School of the Queen Saint Jadwiga Foundation in Przyłęków (Poland) and Preilu Briva skola (Latvia) for a period of 24 months. The main goal of this project was to enable the teachers of our school, together with a partner organization, to share knowledge and experience in the field of specificity and methodology in Montessori education, ""forest education"" inspired by the idea of ​​forest kindergartens, development tutoring among students and methods of informal education. We have developed modern working methods by combining the above-mentioned methods in order to obtain the best educational effect for children and adults . Through the exchange of good practices in our schools, the workshop of educators was developed to help our students gain the skills and competences needed for their current and future functioning. Participation in an international project brought much better results than in the case of local projects. The professional environment within the Montessori organization began to introduce good practices and new methods to everyday activities not only in the school in Przyłęków, but also in other facilities of the Foundation, including in Koszarawa, Kęty and Grodzisk Mazowiecki. Cooperation at the international level allowed to implement innovative practices, a better understanding of the links between formal and non-formal education. The experience related to the implementation of the project had a significant impact on the improvement of the quality of teacher education - it should bring positive and long-lasting effects in building the image of the teacher in the school community. The received funding allowed equal opportunities for teachers and built a lasting partnership in Europe. The main goals of the project: 1) sharing knowledge and experience in education in Montessori, ""forest education"" inspired by forest kindergartens, shaping social skills (the five principles of Ashoka), tutoring, TRIZ, Waldorf, ways of cooperation with parents and partnership with the local community; 2) modern professional involvement in the search for good practices and their implementation in their school environments; 3) improving the skills and qualifications of employees in the use of forest education in kindergartens and classes at higher education levels; 4) improvement of proprietary teaching programs in the fields of mathematics - science, language and emotional development, taking into account the methods of forest and field education on a European scale; 5) improving teachers' skills in the field of foreign languages; 6) exchange of knowledge on the creation of an optimal environment that will allow children and adultsto better develop not only knowledge but also social skills, such as team work, creativity, openness to change, empathy, leadership and mindfulness; 7) promotion of a healthy lifestyle - prevention of nature deficit disorders; 8) preparing the school as a place and team for national and international training in the field of education; We achieved these goals thanks to the activities planned in the project: participation in physical mobility of 10 teachers of our school and 5 in virtual mobility, as well as 8 teachers from the partner school (physical mobility) and 5 in virtual mobility. The planned activities have a long-term impact on the participants, and in particular on increasing the attractiveness of the educational program in partner schools. The scope of the project also covered students, teachers and the entire local community of schools not directly involved in the activities planned in this project. The developed good practices were implemented in other schools of our Foundation (value added project). The very way of implementing the project, i.e. trips abroad, was a more attractive form of learning, which motivates both students and teachers. In addition to the above activities, we have developed a rich project documentation in the form of an e-book ""Handbook for outdoor education practitioners"", articles disseminated on the Polish educational platform E-mi (meaning Education can be different), the Edukacja pod Chmurką webinar and on the websites of partner schools. In addition, we conducted an international training on the eTwinning Live platform on forest pedagogy and the possibilities of its implementation in various forms of education. Access to the above materials will be ensured by placing them in open educational resources, incl. on the Erasmus Plus Dissemination Platform."

"Project titled: ""Outdoor education-as a way to explore the world through experience"" will be carried out within 12 months by two schools: Non-public Primary School of the Foundation of the Queen Saint Jadwiga in Przyłęków (Poland) and Preilu Briva Skola (Latvia). The main aim of the Project is to enable the teachers from both the schools to share their experience and knowledge concerning the methodology of Montessori education, forest education,inspired by tutoring programme as well as methods of informal education. Our intention is to continue the established cooperation by further development of modern methods in accordance with the individual needs of the social education environment. By sharing good practices at our school, and developing joint solutions suitable for adaptation in both partner institutions, we want to develop teachers' expertise to help students acquire the skills desired in the world more effectively. Thanks to this international project its participants will be able to acquire better results than it will be in the case of a local one. Teachers from Montessori school are ready to implement into their everyday work all the good practices and new methods; to cooperate with organisations working in various branches. Continuing cooperation at the international level, completing the initiated changes in education at the level of partner schools, describing the developed models as good practices can significantly affect the dissemination of the model itself as well as inspiring change in general.Project’s assumption is also connected with professional development of teachers in order to improve the quality of teaching. This fact should bring positive and long-term results. What’s more important, Montessori school is located on so called affected area (mountain area) that is way it has reduced chances. Receiving the grant would help us to level playing field for teachers as well continue partnership in Europe due to visible similarities between both schools. Such a partnership based on key values for education will be a significant strengthening for the continuous development of both schools.The main aims of the Project:1)sharing knowledge and experience in the field of forest education based on proprietary teaching methods2) searching for good practices and new methods, finding a way to combine working methods to achieve complementarity in accordance with the individual needs of the social environment of education3)improving the skills and qualifications of employees in the use of forest education at all levels of education from kindergarten to grades 1-8 of primary school4)developing proprietary curricula in the fields of mathematics, nature, language and emotional development, including forestry and field education methods on a European scale5)improving teachers' skills in professional profiles, i.e. pre-school, early school and mathematics and natural sciences as well as in the field of foreign languages6)exchange of the knowledge about creating the optimal environment educational, testing existing solutions,which will help to better develop in children and young people not only the knowledge but will help build self-esteem, independence and also social skills, i.e. work in a group, creativity, openness to changes, empathy, mindfulness7)promotion of healthy diet and a healthy lifestyle as a friendly educational element8)continuation of contacts and permanent cooperation with the school in Latvia9)preparing the school as a place and team for national and international trainings in the field of outdoor education10)improvement of work qualities in the field of forest/outdoor educationResults that we want to obtain:1)understanding by teachers methods and tools used by partner organisation2)using these methods in daily work3)higher quality of teaching in Europe4)being ready to implement good practices and new educational methods into everyday work with students5)continuation and increase of international cooperation in the field of educationWe will achieve these goals thanks to the activities carried out during the project: the participation of 4 teachers from our school and 2 partner school during 2-week visits to partner organizations. Except for the above activities we will elaborate a rich documentation of the project including the syllabus and forming of the abilities based on learning through experience the access to it will be provided through placing of the materials in the open educational resources, among other, on the Propagating Platform of Erasmus+ program and in professional magazines/internet portals."

"Context:For any early childhood education setting - nursery or pre-primary school - to be successful, parents’ involvement is much needed. It outstandingly makes the difference. It is a powerful lever any community can use to create meaningful improvements in children education, care and learning. It includes the parental efforts and attitudes that impact children at home in their daily routine. Parents’ high expectations in early childhood education and care (E.C.E.C.) account for the most important part. The parents’ relationship with school: communicating with educators, attending school events, participating in school governance and strengthening children’s skills and learning achievements is essentai for pupils'growth. Education settings and programmes having a high level of quality are positively associated with children’s emotional, cognitive and behavioural development, with disadvantaged children benefiting the most. Research evidence currently suggests that a strong and consistent home–school relationship is the preliminary step to successfully reach that high level quality. That was the core of the Erasmus+ project “Caring Well Together – A successful alliance of supportive educators” and the file rouge that all partners have been weaving throughout this three year long project (including the COVID-19 pandemic period) of short-term mobilities and jobshadowing, plenary workshops, exchange and comparison of best practices regarding parental involvement in school pedagogy even during the COVID-19 period and the transition to distance learning. Many parents have had to contend with an unexpected situation in which the boundaries between school and home have been blurred and changed radically. The final output is the Final Handbook, which has come into being during this hard time of the pandemic crisis. Its pedagogical content is the synthesis of the rich array of ideas and activities carried out by the partners’ school educators in order to both keep alive their relationship with families and help parents create a new learning framework at home for their children, successfully enjoying their time together. This unique Handbook has been targeted at:- parents in order to help them and have continuous learning for kids (kindergarten-homekindergarten-home);- educators in order to ensure professional development to educators that didn't have the chance to take part in this partnership.Project's objectives: 1. To exchange best practices between partner countries;2. Improve teacher qualification;3. To analyse and to carry out a comparative analysis of activities involving parents carried out by participating kindergartens;4. To write an Handbook summarizing the best practices identified and addressed both to educators and parents.The educators have seen their expertise improving all along the development of the entire project, going from the efficient use of IT tools to share ideas from the planned moments of actual training.The planned activities:The planned activities were conceived in such a way as to lead to the achievement of the project's objectives through a gradual process which ensured the partners' profound appropriation of the project's working methods and objectives. Day after day, the educators got used to sharing ideas, to being actors in a peer-to-peer learning process (in a European dimension) which allowed them to get to know new realities and at the same time to focus on the peculiarities of their educational environment. The first six months of the project were conducted only through a distance cooperation between the partners, using in particular the eTwinning portal. This tool allowed the partners to identify common pedagogical issues and specific needs of their local context related to the parent-child relationship. They then carried out a comparative analysis and laid the groundwork for improving the approaches used.Institutions and people involved in the project presented themselves on the eTwinning portal.For example, through eTwinning cooperation, the partners investigated:1. their respective family models;2. their educational models;3. developed a questionnaire for parents to measure their expectations and willingness to become more involved in the project;4. their good practices: identified, collected and shared.This first analysis given them the first elements to design a common project: a handbook of suggested methods and activities involving Parents. The core of the project were the short-term mobilities of the kindergarten teachers. They represented an unique way for the educators to be accompanied and trained by an external educationalist (during the two plenary workshops) and to get an unique training on the job working in the partners kindergartens. The training conducted during the mobilities were aimed also at identifing tools (e.g. specific activities to be developed by the participating kindergartens or a set of coordinated activities involving local communities) able to face the subject matter of Parenthood. These tools were developed in the Handbook. The mobilities were designed in order to deeply respect the different rhythms and needs of the involved Partners, but at the same time, in order to ensure that all of them fully benefited of this training opportunity and got the best possible impact from the project. To this end, teacher and educators were selected in order to take part in short-term mobilities and workshops.Project's results and its expected longer-term benefits:Through the project, the partner educators, in close cooperation, tried to overcome a critical problem concerning children's development in relation to their educational environment, namely the need to involve parents more in educational activities. Starting from the identification and shared analysis of needs, the partners, through the exchange of good practices, improved the qualification of teachers by providing solutions by identifying best practices, also included in the Handbook, addressed to both educators and parents. In the long-term, educators partners see that this project will help the involved institutions to build internationalcooperation contacts, experience and learn from other kindergartens and institutions, use the best practices and ideas gathered in their daily work and increase the quality of their teaching and operating. Through this project and the planned training activities, the institutions will get qualification as teaching staff. As the institutions have parents, who are involved in the school life, the partner kindergartens are looking forward to creating the most organized system through the experience in this project and partners involved in the project. Even if the training activities and the mobilities will no longer be possible, the kindergartens plan tokeep on cooperating remotely through eTwinning. They will integrate the project results in their pedagogical approach and implement one or more best practices of their partners. The cooperation through eTwinnings will enable them to continuously keep in touch and share suggestions on the activities implemented and more generally to consolidate their ""Supportive caring alliance model"" described in the Best practice handbook."

Effective sustainable development is one of the common challenges for European Union and its member countries, as is the education for sustainable development. It is part of the European strategic goals, national strategic goals and also of national school curriculums. As educators we are faced with the challenge how to present the subject to children who are ever more disconnected with nature and with themselves. We face the same problem with some of our colleagues and parents. Connecting with likeminded educators from abroad is one of the ways to stay motivated and achieve creative solutions. The main aim of the project is to achieve long lasting changes in schools by sharing good practices collected in guidelines on integrating sustainability. Throughout the project, partners will share ideas by working collaboratively online and documenting their work using our project Twinspace. We will also exchange ideas and results during face-to-face meetings in all the partner countries. Emphasis will be on international cooperation. Since every partner school follows different national/local guidelines, has special conditions regarding natural environment surrounding their school, spatial conditions and is set in a specific culture, activities will be set in a way where every school will be able to adapt them.Objectives: - exchange of examples of good practice among project partners by having a meeting in each country (they will include powerpoint presentations, workshops and job shadowing);- to develop guidelines on integrating sustainability in educational institutions, that can be applied to any educational institutions;- to document existing practices in partner schools in the area of sustainable food practices, waste management, sustainable practices involving toys and play/art materials, outdoor activities and sustainable relationships in the form of a joint report;- to foster critical thinking and problem solving skills among staff and children by enabling them to develop creative solutions for different issues such as reusing waste materials, creating outdoor spaces ...- minimising or optimising our impact on nature by more effective recycling solutions (creating compost heaps, making school gardens, rethinking toys and art materials, staying outdoors more ...);- to improve knowledge of the pupils, parents, educators and staff on sustainable development by exposing them to different issusus (such as local and imported produce, recycling ...)- to involve parents and local communities in our project by spreading sustainable practices among themProject resoults:- booklet with sustainability guidelines for preschools/schools (main product)- Facebook page and Twinspace with sustainability guidelines and collection of good practices- posters for different events (seed exchange, school garden volunteer day ...) and visual guidelines for sustainability practices (recycing, composting ...).- questionnaires for children/parents/teachers/staff about changes in attitudes toward sustainability (will be distributed at the start and at the end of the projects)- dissemination folder with all the powerpoint presentations about project activities, photographs, videos, documents, booklets and posters in pdf form- eTwinning educational course for teachers Project is aimed at preschool and lower primary school institutions. One of the groups involved in the project are children aged 1- 11 years old. They will participate in local project activities and events. Project involves only teacher and school personnel mobilities. There will be six project meetings (2 in Slovenia, 1 in Bulgaria, Sweden, Latvia and Spain) with 2-4 participants from every partner country (15 in total). Mobilities will involve different educators such as teachers, school staff and management. Each meeting will be dedicated to one of the subtopics of the project (sustainable food practices, waste management, sustainable practices involving toys and play / art materials, outdoor activities and sustainable relationships). All participants of the project see sustainable development as the only successful method of development for the future. That means that all the solutions and practices that will be collected during the project and proved effective will be used in schools in the long term (taking into account different national / local guidelines, special conditions regarding the natural environment surrounding their school, conditions and cultural differences). We will also create sustainability guidelines that will be shared among our national school networks and with public. Activities and examples of good practice will be gathered in the activity folder which will be available to teachers of the schools involved in the projects. We plan to use them in our lesson plans. If the partnership proves successful we will later try to work on another project and tackle new challanges that future will bring.

In the last decades, we see a lot of changes in the society, in areas which influence the lives of our young ones. Mundy and Manion (2008) are convinced that a modern school has the task to give a child knowledge, skills and competences for collaboration in the globalized world. Gabor, Kos and Tašner (2016) state that the educational systems need not only provide traditional skills and knowledge, but to involve and integrate competences which stimulate the development of an individual. The European Commission advises that the society demands collaborative, problem solving and communication skills, critical thinking, digital literacy, creativity, entrepreneurship and the ability to learn by self. These abilities will contribute to our future life and new ideas, theories, products and know-how (European Council, 2018a). Upon identifying common critical areas and future challenges, we determined that all partners face the same lack in their kindergarten curricula and when it comes to the transfer of knowledge to primary schools. The curricula don't cover the development of STEAM, digital skills and language (thus communication skills) in a sufficient way, so we identified those as crucial for our partnership. Development and strengthening of such competences is in the focus of our developed Erasmus+ project, where we want to develop the most important horizontal skills and competences of pre-primary children with objectives: - developing language skills in native and English language of educators (new innovative approach, like learning STEAM-related vocabulary and utilize it),- involving English learning in kindergarten by students from primary school as a new approach, - developing digital skills of educators and simultaneously children by using computational thinking concepts and with the aid of IT and robotics (suggested tools: CS unplugged, robots like Lego, beebots, Scratch Jr., code.org, cubetto, 3D printing, virtual reality, code and go, etc.), - STEAM-related skills and literacy by various scientific approaches towards learning about nature and science and developing the related vocabulary, - developing informal ways of professional competences of educators, which is obligatory in 5 European countries, - strengthen the quality of early childhood care and education by purchasing and active application of new technological and IT tools. Mentioned objectives will be carried out with LTT activities and the transfer of ideas into our daily curricular work. We will use the approach of computational thinking. We will actively engage teachers and children to be part of everyday activities using STEAM and English language by means of IT tools, robotics, coding, problem solving, creativity, collaborative work, structured work, experiments, observing natural phenomena, learning about nature, sharing on Twinspace (database of project results - materials, documentation) and in an online project journal, which will be a summary of undertaken activities, open for the public. Our project will involve all kindergarten and some primary school teachers, children from participating kindergartens and partner kindergartens, parents of children, professionals from higher education institutions, the local community and the wider professional and non-professional audience. Our project will focus also on participants with lesser opportunities, we want to provide enriched learning environment for them. We expect to reach at least a number of 1500 participants through out project activities. In practice, totally six European schools will organize international workshops for teachers and 2 for students. Each workshop has a topic related to STEAM with digital tools, IT and English vocabulary. Pre-planned and concrete pedagogical activities, organized in concert with partners, professionals from higher educational institutions and parents, will offer children genuine experiences of participation. We will measure the impact and influence by interviews, opinions, proofs of learning activities, potrfolios, journals (qualitative methods) and quantitative methods (participants, activities, lessons, dissemination activities) etc.All stakeholders will get new ideas and examples how to develop teaching and crucial competences and to enrich their daily lessons. In addition, we will share the produced learning material in national and European public networks/platforms, such as eTwinning. The project will develop children' basic skills such as STEAM literacy and foreign language. At the end we will have a final international conference and we want to connect topics from several projects (Erasmus+ and national projects). This will have the largest impact in long-term on local, national and some extent international level. We see an added value and sustainable impact of our project in providing ideas on using STEAM and connect it with foreign language learning and computational thinking in daily activities.