La historia de mi casa (The Story of my Home)
The Story of My Home is an eTwinning Project. It is the product of a collaboration between several schools: a Spanish school called San Xoán in Gallicia (Primary and Infants); two Portuguese schools called Agrupamento de Escolas nº 3 de Elvas and Escola Básica Francisco Ornelas da Câmara; and one Turkish school called Nazilli Özel Eğitim Mesleki Eğitim Merkezi Okulu.
The Project is integrated into the curriculum plan of the Primary and Infants School San Xoán. It forms a curriculum unit which is aimed at pupils with specific learning needs. The children range form age 8 to 16 years old. Basically, the Project promotes the development of the basic competences from a multidisciplinary perspective.
The Project encourages the pupils to use vocabulary related to the family home, such as: the rooms and the distribution of the rooms within the house; the furniture; construction materials; and the character of the surrounding area etc. The pupils tell stories related to their families and their experiences in the family home. In addition, they learn about demographic changes in rural areas and discover the similarities and differences between their homes compared with the homes of other pupils that participate in the Project.
The pupils familiarize themselves with technological devices. The aim is to develop digital competences through the use of emails; power point and ISUU presentations; image editors; text processors; YouTube videos; entries in blogs; the use of interactive white boards in the classroom; and geolocalization tools, such as, Google Street View.
The Project has planning materials relating to the objectives; contents; time allotted to each activity; the organisation of each task; and, the methodology used throughout the development of the Project. The activities are carefully planned and adapted to the needs of each pupil. The didactic materials allow the pupils to compare their homes and the way they live with others and to raise their awareness of different European realities. We highlight and actively promote the dissemination of the results through blogs, school magazines and school exhibitions.
Susana Vázquez, the Coordinator of the Project at San Xoán, says:
“For us, two approaches to this Project have been particularly important and have led to interesting and valuable results. The families of the pupils have participated a great deal and made valuable contributions to the success of this Project.
The two approaches to this Project have been:
- the creation of the book, “The Secrets of My Home”
- and the questionnaire about the family unit and population changes from generation to generation from grandfather to father to son. The evaluation of the results shows the population movements and we could see that many families have moved from country to city. The questionnaire was carried out in three countries and all the participating countries collaborated in the work related to the questionnaire and eTwinning”.
We would like to congratulate the teachers involved in this Project for giving the pupils in special education the opportunity to develop an autonomous study process. In addition, the teachers have developed, promoted and encouraged teamwork; made the information easily available and accessible to all; promoted respect towards the pupils' environment; and finally, encouraged the pupils to communicate with pupils from other countries and cultures.
Source of images: The TwinSpace of the Project.
