Five schools from northern and southern Europe collaborated on a cultural program for their kindergarten students. The program gave the children opportunities to learn about the cultures of other European countries through activities like visiting museums, sharing traditions, and communicating with partner students. The goals were to develop European identity and citizenship qualities like tolerance. Some example activities included learning about each country's history, customs, food, and visiting local historical sites and museums. The program aimed to strengthen both national and European identity among the young students.

2. Cultural activities
in Kindergarten
of Rizario
Trikala ,Greece

4. 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 use.
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. 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!

8. 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

9. ● 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 .

10. ● 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 .

11. 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 activities in our school!

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

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

16. Children’s participation in cultural activities!

17. Creation of “Old museum “in our school

18. Representation of life in old times

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

20. Learning about traditional products of our region

22. Children's participation in various cultural events

23. Learning the professions of past and nowadays

24. Learning the past through old photos!

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

26. Visits to museums of our region and to factories of traditional products!

27. Cultural activities in Kindergarten

28. 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.And these principles are just the same with those of of Preschool
Education.
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.

29. "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".

30. Presentation
by Ann Magkiosi
project coordinator