Small Scientists Across Europe is a project combining kindergarten education programmes, reflections on the implementation of these programmes and innovative methods for acquiring scientific knowledge in order to develop thinking in a structured way. This project brought together seven European schools of preschool level from six different countries, including a school specialising in the education of pupils with disabilities, linking more than 75 teachers, 1000 pupils and their families.It allowed students to broaden their scientific knowledge on four main themes: Earth, Air, Water and Fire and to be confronted with problem situations in order to acquire the skills necessary to understand phenomena through an investigative approach.By allowing children to appropriate a motivating starting question (simple but making sense so that children appropriate the problem and want to solve it), this approach allows them to experiment themselves with simple and available equipment, to confront others in action, to observe what they are looking for, to discuss with their peers, to bring out solutions and to share discoveries. This approach allows for in-depth and not superficial learning through the understanding of the real-world phenomena to which they have been exposed and the active construction of knowledge. This project also made it possible to develop language in all its dimensions and communication.Each theme to be studied was divided into several experiments taking into account the material, effects and possible transformations. The young child in each structure was confronted not only with experiments conducted in his or her environment, but also those carried out by the partners (twenty-one different experiments on each theme, three in each school and of three difficulty levels). The experience of the partner countries allows the confrontation of events, structures and thinking that are different from those of the country of origin. Experiences are documented in manuals for children to create personalized materials, including real and functional experiences.In addition to the production of four scientific books (one on each theme) for students, teachers and academic inspection (to ensure wider dissemination), students produced literary works (twenty eight stories on the four different themes) and played online activities based on their own drawings or productions. Thanks to the scientific context integrated into the children's daily environment and the selected activities that are an integral part of the national education programmes, our children's skills in research, critical thinking and creativity have been developed. They experimented with different materials, learned through play, cooperation and collaboration with other children, respecting rules and responsibilities, had the opportunity to explore, observe, analyse and solve problems, feel the joy of creativity.Our project has strengthened the digital and technical key competences of staff and children, as well as the key competences in cultural and intercultural awareness. Teachers in partner pre-schools are now more confident and more willing to adopt and use new technologies in their classrooms. A dedicated project website is a living and regularly updated source of information that will continue after the two years of the project (part of the budget has been set aside to maintain the site). Throughout the project's life cycle, the documents have been registered in Twinspace on the eTwinning platform, all teachers have registered and been able to discover the platform and get involved in projects.All planned project meetings were successfully implemented and took place in a fruitful and productive atmosphere. At these meetings, objectives, targets and activities were clearly defined. An agreed timetable clarified all objectives and set specific deadlines, and these meetings were an excellent opportunity to exchange good practices in science education. Communication between participating educational staff strengthened networks and provided feedback on ideas that could be used in the project.The evaluations put in place show a real interest on the part of children and teachers in this type of discovery, the practice of experiments in class and the desire to ensure that this teaching continues in future years. The parents of the students appreciated this different approach, the team's investment in this project, its success and the communication around it.

The project rose from the needs to meet the requirements of the modern world via developing and implementing innovative educational practices related to experience-based pedagogical approach educating children aged 3-12. The project outcomes target at strengthening professional profile of already working educators and students - future teachers by developing pedagogical guidelines on experiential education, open educational tools-real life cases, offering training for improvement of professional and communicative skills, improving curricula of pre-school, primary and teacher training institutions.The consortium of project partners consisted of 9 institutions: 3 non-academic universities from Lithuania, the Netherlands, Latvia, 4 academic universities from Turkey, Greece, Portugal and Romania (all institutions provide teacher training for pre-school and primary education), a primary school (providing pre-primary and primary education) from Lithuania and a kindergarten (providing pre-school education) from Lithuania. All partners have associated partners kindergartens and primary schools, they function in big clusters together with other educational institutions, social partners, non-profit or profit organization of informal education.Tangible project results are: 1. Research survey report about experiential education in LT, RO, NL, GR, PT, TR, LV; 2. Handbook of pedagogical guidelines for educators and parents about experiential teaching/learning of children aged 3-12; 3. Case studies for practical usage; 4. Curriculum update. Intangible project results are: 1. Improved professional skills of teachers in pre-school and primary education; 2. Increased cross-cultural awareness and communication abilities; 3. Better language skills.Every project institution functioned in a cluster together with pre-school and/or primary education institutions which are the sites of students practical training. The project results are disseminated among those social partners. To make the results easy accessible intellectual outputs will be translated into national languages.

MOTIVATIONSince reading an essay entitled biophilia, the idea of the project arose: that people are naturally attracted against their natural world. However, numerous parents in the 21st century will challenge this hypothesis, when they witness their children show a strong preference for sitting in front of a television in a sofa over playing outdoors. It is estimated that the typical European child spends 4 to 7 minutes every day in unorganized outdoor play, and more than 7 hours per day in front of a computer.The project includes two key activities in its core; on one side, it will take children outside and on the other side it will teach them specific responsibility toward nature and the world beyond.Based on all these reasons and goals, as Europe's primary school teachers, we have come together and created this study to implement a comprehensive curriculum to connect our children with nature, to make them excited in the outdoors, to create and implement easy and realistic entertaining practices within the school systems.We've established 50 specific outdoor plays (10 for each LTTA), as primary school teachers would come together in 5 LTTAs and organize workshops with their techniques, strategies, resources and formulation to create such plays appropriate for schools. They will introduce and apply these plays in their schools upon returning home from the mobility and they will integrate them into their curriculum of our schools.OBJECTIVESO1. To share experiences and practices related to teaching of outdoor games between primarylevel teachers from various European countriesO2. To promote the production of outdoor playing teaching resources appropriate for schoolsO3. To develop the environmental awareness among children O4. To provide children with individual and social commitment and responsibilityO5. To enhance the role and position of the school inside the local communitiesO6. To popularize an active citizenship and social/civic responsibilityThe project events and activities will allow the children to play outdoors and show the children individual responsibilities for nature and hence the environment. Therefore, they are going to be more aware of preserving nature.PARTICIPANTSThe project firstly addresses kids/children aged between 4-11 as main beneficiaries via their teachers who will study and work out the practical activities in the LTTAs, which will then be implemented locally. Teachers will be the second beneficiaries and they will be the main actors for running the activities at first hand as instructors. 5 teachers from each partner school will take part in each LTTA. 50 teachers will benefit as direct participants and minimum 150 teachers as indirect ones. Altogether, the dissemination events will affect around 500 teachers. 150 aged between 4-11 are actively and directly involved in the activitiesACTIVITIES AND METHODOLOGYWe've established 50 specific outdoor plays (10 for each LTTA), as primary school teachers would come together in 5 LTTAs and organize workshops with their techniques, strategies, resources and formulation to create such plays appropriate for schools. They will introduce and apply these plays in their schools upon returning home from the mobility and they will integrate them into their curriculum.RESULTS AND IMPACTThe outdoor plays created and uploaded to the virtual platforms during project events and will be used by all partners after completion - this will increase the schools 'resource base. New courses for pupils may be created further on, such as using the materials produced in the project.The project also involves the growth of the human resources, which is both useful in the short and long term. Project builds partnerships between teachers and their colleagues in Europe and offers them the ability to create potential ideas for future project. All participating teachers improve their knowledge of other systems of education and can use the best practices in their own regional contexts.There will be increased cooperation among teachers within the same school and this would increase the intensity of intra-institutional ties. It will establish an optimistic atmosphere and greater collaboration and will help all of the school's actors.Once outdoor activities are used, the lessons will become more appealing to pupils. That means children will feel more inspired to study. They will also grow a sense of responsibility and continue to take a more active role within their culture, supporting themselves, the identity of the school and the society itself. In coming years, students and their instructors will plan environmental education programs. They may also arrange after-school activities for pupils and allow the involved citizenship normal activity at school level.

"We live in a technocratic age, and today we are observing more and more often children staring at their computers or phones. We see less and less people talking to each other. Today, we are increasingly flooded with information from various sources, but we are becoming less aware of it and that is why we are often talking about ""functional illiteracy"". Today, most teachers share that children are indifferent to education, school, learning, and all kinds of general activities. There is no desire for direct communication because in many cases the child / young person / is afraid to express his / her own feelings and emotions, as well as to understand the feelings and emotions of others. We believe that building emotional intelligence in children is directly related to an attitude of empathy and compassion, as well as an understanding of human nature. This allows the children to connect with other people on an emotional level. Being compassionate allows the children to be helpful and respond truly to others' concerns.Therefore, the main goals we set ourselves in this direction are:To enable children and students to become aware of the educational process so that they can understand what they see, hear, read and feel, and most importantly, respond appropriately to all this.To motivate children and students to learn through empathy, which includes: emotional control, self-awareness, self-motivation and the ability to build and maintain relationships.To involve everyone in the community - children (including vulnerable groups and people with learning disabilities); teachers and parents and give them the opportunity for communication at emotional level, acquire knowledge, skills and competences in order to improve the overall personal development.Sharing experiences through the media to overcome language barriers for both students and teachers. Developing ICT skills through the use of modern technologies and virtual mobility.Development of a number of end products for sharing with partner schools, for developing competencies and entrepreneurship, and for engaging local communities in the process of their creation, implementation and dissemination.Enabling teachers to share their knowledge, compare their teaching and learning approaches, design new curriculum, programs, innovation, sharing good practice examples to enhance the quality of teaching and learning in the partner institutions.Children and students should learn, not just facts as quantity, but as quality – to gain knowledge that will help them to think, feel and, on that basis, to do causal links, logical connections and only then to act.Enabling children and students to express with words, actions or drawings their emotions using the methods of art in all its forms.Encouraging adults (parents and teachers) to share their emotions with children and to answer how we manage to deal with different emotions, because the full range of feelings is understandable and part of the human nature, although some actions need to be restricted by following patterns of behavior used in sport.The selection of partners was made in the light of shared values in terms of:The development of key competences for all individuals – from early childhood and lifelong;Acquiring of social skills, learning skills as well as social inclusion, ""classroom diversity"", including children from vulnerable groups.The project partnership was created thanks to previous experience our organization has in its work on ERASMUS + Comenius projects and established contacts with countries from all over Europe. The choice of countries and their number was not accidental. We focused on cultural, social, economic and geographical diversity. This will enable us to track how project activities will be implemented in different parts of Europe. We believe that our previous experience and potential from Comenius and Erasmus + projects will greatly contribute to the quality of the project. We intend ...... teachers,... children and .. parents to be involve in the project. Since the project will work in direction of emotional self-awareness, we will enable the child (guided by his teachers) to learn about his own emotions and to control them, he will have the opportunity to explore information, think and create, use his body and mind, find a solution and better ways of communicating with adults and friends, both: who are close to him or far in Europe. The Master will be a trainer, but also a follower, partner and friend.The project will focus on activities related to sports, environmentally friendly lifestyles and art in all its forms. Through these activities, children can play, make up stories and debate on the characters' behavior in these stories, express themselves better, follow the rules, practice healthy outdoor activities, learn to collaborate to achieve the same goal, to think and develop logical skills."

Inclusive education at the kindergarten level does not only mean the integration of children with special needs, but also involves another approach of preschool pedagogy, an inclusive or curricular approach which essentially captures and highlights two basics concepts: uniqueness and diversity. Education for all supposes a proper use of the human, material and methodological resources, so that each player of the educational process has the opportunity to learn and develop. Starting from all of these, we decided to create this project in order to educate and support personal and social development of happy, independent and positive children under the careful supervision of professional and personal developed teachers which offer quality services, in order to integrate the children in a multicultural society and also they can change the mentalities and prejudices among the parents. The four partner kindergartens from Romania, Turkey, Lithuania and Macedonia aim to create an inclusive educational act by collecting innovative methods and strategies in a guide of good practices, strengthening international partnerships by developing the transversal competences of the teachers and ensuring a inclusive environment in units, by developing the social skills of the members of the educational process. Through this project we want to emphasize not only the possibilities and premises of children’s progress, but also the potential and motivation for change and development of teachers, as well as focusing parents’ attention on children’s education. The structure of our project includes: A. Organizational activities: 1 activity of selecting the project team in each kindergarten 1 activity for creating a communication network with partners 4 activities of preparation on informative materials for participants 4 activities for preparing the logistics for the teacher’s movement 1 activity for developing the monitoring and evaluation tools: direct observation sheets for children, questionnaires for teachers and parents, a monitoring sheet for dissemination activities in the classroom for each teacher 1 activity for elaborate, translate and publication of the guide B. Promotion activities 1 meeting with the parents in each kindergarten 5 working activities within the Erasmus+ Club in each kindergarten 5 working activities within the project web pages 1 cultural-artistic event in each kindergarten 1 banner in each kindergarten 1 activity for distributing 100 flyers in comunity, each kindergarten C. Mobility activities: We carry out 4 movement activities with a duration of 5 days each. These will suppose exchanges of good practices of teaching / learning methods and strategies, based on games and activities, traditional games, digital activities with children and interactive activities through music and dance. D. Dissemination activities: 1 training, 1 workshop, 1 team-building with teachers 3 activities for applying the new methods in classroom 1 workshop, 1 focus group, 1 exhibition with products made in the Club with parents 1 pedagogical circle/ regional workshop with teachers from others kindergarten1 seminar with people from the community E. Monitoring and evaluation activities: 1 activity of completing / interpreting the direct observation sheets of the children in each kindergarten 1 activity for completing / interpreting the activity monitoring sheets in the classroom of teachers 1 activity of interpreting the questionnaires given to the parents in each unit 1 activity of completing / interpreting the questionnaires of the teaching staff regarding the development of transversal competences 1 activity for collecting the final conclusions 1 activity for elaborate the final report The impact of all the activities will highlight an increase of the level of acceptance of diversity and will adopt the principles of inclusive education among our communities. The teachers will have the opportunity to increase the methods and strategies of teaching/learning process with preschoolers, to evolve in collaboration with children, colleagues and parents and to develop socially, civically and professionally. The children will develop their social skills in the sense that they will accept the differences between them and cooperate with each other, showing tolerance and cooperation. Parents will become aware of the importance of accepting diversity and collaboration with the school environment and will become more flexible, tolerant and more informed about the dimensions of an inclusive school life. We thought that only together we could create an inclusive future!