Cultural activities in Kindergarten (guide of good practices of five schools of five European countries which took part in the Erasmus+ project "My culture, your culture, our culture" 2018-2020

2. Guide of good practices
● The importance of cultural education in preschool education.
● Indicative cultural activities in kindergarten
● ( including activities of all five participating schools)
For the Erasmus team
Ann magkiosi
Project coordinator

3. Five schools representing more than 600 students from northern
and southern Europe collaborated in this project and gave teachers
and students the opportunity to cultivate their cultural awareness
and strengthen their European identity by knowing the culture of
other European nations and form the attitudes of a European
citizen, who is characterized by tolerance, desire for improvement,
care and respect for local and global cultural values.
Portugal Italy Greece Poland Lithuania

5. The contribution of culture, and especially of cultural heritage, as a factor
of social cohesion emerges as one of the most important challenges for 21st
century societies, but also for Europe's sustainability itself.
Cultural heritage as a guardian of the common values that constitute our
national and European identity is inherent in all areas of our lives and is
fundamental to sustainable development (environmental, economic and
social) and an indicator of the human well-being.
The variety of subjects of native culture gives teachers the opportunity to
use linguistic, cultural, intercultural, artistic, aesthetic and historical
material. But the most important thing is that it gives children an exciting
journey into the imaginary world of the past.
Contact with culture encourages children to participate in the educational
process, to get to know their cultural heritage, to cultivate multiple skills of
the cognitive, emotional and psychomotor sector, to self-act and to
complete all their skills.
Cultural education in Kindergarten

6. The importance of cultural education
Cultural education contribute to the development of European
consciousness and prepare the European citizen of tomorrow that respects
the culture, human rights and values and that will be prepared to acting and
making right decisions for a better tomorrow.
The tradition contributes to the communication of peoples, particularly
those with common cultural elements, which is crucial for maintaining peace
and developing friendly relations among the people.
Thus, tradition offers for both, individual and social elements that will
contribute to the preservation of national values, the human rights defense,
the training of individuals being capable of coping with the problems of
modern reality.

7. Appreciation and respect for our own tradition and our own culture will bring
self-knowledge and appreciation, respect and acceptance of the tradition of
the other no matter what country it comes from and the realization that all
cultures are a piece in the huge puzzle of world culture and that we are not
only citizens of our country but also of a larger world.If we know first our
culture we will become more open to other cultures .
It is not possible to properly understand the modern world and our society
without knowing and understanding the roots, traditions and institutions
that we inherit.
The school, as a first step in systemic education for children, is responsible
for shaping and developing the cultural consciousness because it involves and
facilitates the whole educational process, normalizes relationships, and
contributes to action to protect their cultural heritage.
The contact of young children with their cultural heritage works by
compensating for the unequal educational starting points that characterize
many students as they cross the threshold of the kindergarten for the first
time.

8. The main principles of Preschool Education are the all-round, harmonious
and balanced development of the mental and psychosomatic forces of
infants, the development of creative and critical thinking, the development of
friendship and cooperation and their successful social integration, through a
modern and progressive school, covering new social and scientific needs.
Active methods of learning and activating all children's senses and enriching
the experiential performances of children are an important factor that
contribute to the advancement of their intellectual development. Student can
shape their own understanding of society and the world landscape with
experiential action.
Through the educational process the cultural material can feed the new
generation into its creation and add to the technological environment
created by the contemporary civilization the folklore, the folk culture and the
cultural heritage.

9. Cultural education helps children to build a harmonious relationship
between the past and the present, understand the historical and social
processes and form a cultural consciousness that will allow them to
participate, to create variant or new cultural forms.
The contact of young children with their cultural heritage works by
compensating for the unequal educational starting points that characterize
many students as they cross the threshold of the kindergarten for the first
time.
Bearing in mind that children of lower social strata (regardless of
background) have psychosocial and cognitive skills deficits, as well as a
higher learning motivation of middle and higher social strata children, there
is a need for infants’ "cultural enrichment" because its benefits will be key.
Children from a very early age can and are able to benefit from to a great
extent by their contact with the cultural heritage and through appropriate
pre-primary education
Respond to the capacities of this age-specific level will provide all pupils
equal opportunities and equal access to cultural heritage and art.

10. The cultural enriching of this age children, is necessity because the
experiences of preschool children in Europe can exert real influence on their
lives today, in the future and basically throughout their lives.
It is, therefore, extremely important to offer the best possible experience for
children and their families.
The value of cultural Education in this age is invaluable, since there are built
habits and attitudes of life and formed characters, is building the way of
thought of little children and contact with culture encourages children to
participate in the educational process, to get to know their cultural heritage
and to cultivate their cultural awareness.As sooner it will begin this
cultivation in young children, more deeply is going to embedded inside them.
Pupils through related activities of cultural education can become more
open-minded and interested in other cultures through their experiences
gained.

11. Cultural education give the opportunity to children to experience cultural
events that bring together people and build bridges of peace and
friendship.
With this program we aimed to shape students’ behavior towards family,
local and international community, as well as to create more sensitive
citizens with the spirit of cultural coexistence, cooperation, and reciprocity
between the peoples.
We aim at preserving our culture, promoting the culture of different
European countries and to eliminate racism and prejudice, eliminating
marginalization and organizing seminars, festivals and other activities,
smoothly exploring the richness of tradition integration of these people
into the community.
For this reason, we believe that the value and merit of cultural education is
priceless, as there are capabilities of building habits and attitudes of life,
shaping characters, creating the way of thinking and perception of the
cultural heritage.

13. Ιndicative cultural activities in kindergarten
● Presentation of our city and our country via children paintings or
cards.
● Visit to historical monuments of our region and learn their history
● Learn about our National celebrations
● Learn about the myths,history and legends of our region
● Learn about the evolution of life (transportation,means of heating,
development of housing, utensils, furniture, way of fields cultivation
professions of past,food,clothes in the past and present, etc.)
● Representation of style of life in old times
● Creations of school museum
● Visit to a folklore or other related to culture museum

14. ● Invite to our school people of elderry to discuss about life in old times
● Learn about our customs (Christmas ,Easter,Carnival,1st of
May,e.t.c.)
● Ρepresentation of customs with the help of their parents
● Gook traditional recipes in our school in cooperation with parents
● Learn about products of our region and visits to related factories
● Learn to sing traditional songs and dance traditional dances
● Take part in various cultural events
● Participation in multicultural events ,organised by schools of local
community .

15. ● Invite to our school authors to narrate stories of our tradition
● Invite musicians who play traditional music organs
● Learn about Olympic games and organise an event on the topic with
the active participation of children
● Representation of various events of life ( marriage,visit to a
house,et.c)
● Creation of our own book with traditional stories illustrated by
children
● Invite grandmothers to come in school and made sweets and
marmalades,like in old times .
● Make a photo album with old photos from family albums
Of course there are lot of cultural other activities that we can
implementate in our school using the knowledge that offer us the cultural
education .

16. Cultural activities in Kindergarten
This program gave children the opportunity of sharing their ideas and
working with children of other European countries, learning about their
culture, visiting museums. At the same time they shared games, songs,
stories, traditions, dances and customs of the participant countries,
getting the sense that they are part of a larger community called Europe.
They learned about the heritage and culture of other European nations,
understood the similarities and differences between cultures and
lifestyles, accepted their coexistence and imagined a common future
strengthened national and European identity. We gave equal
opportunities to all children of all nationalities supporting to participate
in all activities especially children with special educational needs or
economical obstacles, immigrants, refugees and with other mental or
physical disabilities.
See in the following pages a sample of our activities per school!

17. Cultural activities in Kindergarten

18. Cultural activities in Kindergarten
This program gave children the opportunity of sharing their ideas and
working with children of other European countries, learning about their
culture, visiting museums. At the same time they shared games, songs,
stories, traditions, dances and customs of the participant countries,
getting the sense that they are part of a larger community called Europe.
They learned about the heritage and culture of other European nations,
understood the similarities and differences between cultures and
lifestyles, accepted their coexistence and imagined a common future
strengthened national and European identity. We gave equal
opportunities to all children of all nationalities supporting to participate
in all activities especially children with special educational needs or
economical obstacles, immigrants, refugees and with other mental or
physical disabilities.
See in the following pages a sample of our activities per school!

19. Cultural activities
in Kindergarten
of Rizario
Trikala ,Greece
Presentation
by Ann Magkiosi

20. Learning about our country and the countries of our partners

21. Presentation of our city through the eyes of children of Rizario Kindergarten

22. Children participations in cultural activities!

23. Creation of “Old museum “in our school

24. Representation of life in old times

25. The involvement of the parents was obvious in every our step!

26. Learning about traditional product in out region

27. Children's participation in various cultural events

28. Learning the professions of past and nowadays

29. Learning the past through old photos!

30. Learning about traditional customs for each season and traditional costumes of our region!

31. Visits to historical monument of our region and to factories of traditional products!

32. Cultural activities
in Vilniaus r.
Mickūnų vaikų
lopšelis-darželis,
Lithuania

34. Creation of project
corner in preschool

35. Creation of
museum in
preschool

36. Meaning of
cultural
friendship

37. Traditional autumn
events in preschool,
together with all local
community and
parents.

39. Traditional winter events
and activities

40. Museum education

41. Cultural weeks in
preschool

43. Cultural events together with local authorities

44. Children work about the
main national symbols

45. Cultural activities
in Kindergarten I.C.1
S.M. Prisco
Boscotrecase- Italy

47. Our city:
Boscotrecase

49. Our school
museum

50. Old house of our territory

51. From past to present: discovering our
roots

52. Cultural activities

53. Grandma's old recipes

54. Discovering our territory and the games of the past: some of our outings

55. The world I would like

56. Cultural activities
in Przedszkole Samorzadowe
w ZPO w Woli Filipowskiej,
Poland

57. European Corner
creation

58. School Museum
“Antics exhibition”

59. Talking about our past life

60. Meeting representatives of different professions

61. Visiting Cultural Institutions

63. Taking part in
National Celebrations

64. Taking part
in folk and
regional
customs

66. Taking part in European Celebration

67. Children’s work and paintings
about culture, folk, tradition

69. Cultural activities
in Kindergarten
JI de Almada
Almada, Portugal

70. Presentation of our city and our country
via children paintings or cards.
Presentation of partner countries.

71. Visit to historical monuments of our region
and learn their history
Learn about our
National celebrations
Portugal Day

72. Learn about the
myths,history and legends
of our region
Learn about the evolution of life
means of heating
or transport, for example

73. Representation of
style of life in old times
Creation of
a school museum
Visit to a folklore museum

74. Invite
older people
to our school
to discuss life
in the old days
Learn about our customs - Easter and May,
for example
Cook traditional recipes

75. Representation of
costumes with the help
of their parents
Learn about products
of our region
and visits
to related factories
Learn to sing traditional songs
and dance traditional dances

76. Take part in various cultural events
The "human" Blue Ribbon” raises awareness
of the prevention of violence and abuse in childhood.
World Day
for Cultural Diversity
for Dialogue
and Development
Participation in multicultural
events ,organised by schools
of local community .

77. Invite to our school authors
to narrate stories of our tradition
and musicians who play
traditional music

78. Learn about Olympic games and
organise an event on the topic with
the active participation of children
Representation of
various events of life
Creation of our own
book with traditional
stories illustrated by
children
Sleeping Beauty

79. Make a photo album with old photos
from family albums

80. There are lot of cultural other activities that we
can implementate in our school using the
knowledge that offer us the cultural education.
Made sweets and
marmalades,
like in old times. Parents play traditional
instruments with children.

81. International Day
How wine was made
in the past.

82. "The European Commission support for the
production of this publication does not constitute
an endorsement of the contents which reflects the
views only of the authors, and the Commission
cannot be held responsible for any use which may
be made of the information contained therein"
This guide of good practices was created
after the cooperation of all participant countries
For the Erasmus+ team
Ann Magkiosi
Project coordinator