Friday (29 - 02 - 2008)

Hello,

Today we had to prepare the musical project we have to do in two primary schools.
We had to come up with activities and a general frame in groups of 7 students. It all has to do with ropes, knots and buttons.

It was'nt very easy for me to work in a group and to agree on everything. We all had a lot of ideas. Not all the ideas were the same. But at the end we were happy with the result. We choose that the general frame would be about the jungle and all the activities with the ropes, knots and buttons were linked to this general frame.

I think that it is pity that we don't have a lot of time to prepare this. We had to work really fast to come up with ideas. I think that we would come up with maybe better ideas when there was'nt such a time pressure. We would be able to make more decorative materials. We also have almost no time to think about the organisation. I think that there will al lot go wrong because the thinking work has to go so quick.
I will see how it will go. I hope that everybody can enjoy it and that there aren't a lot of problems.

Here are some pictures of our preperation:

Thursday (28 - 02 - 2008)

Hello,

Today the foreign students had to do an activity of 15 minutes with the children of pre-primary and primary school. The Belgian students had to guide and support the foreign students because the children can’t understand English or other languages. I supported the Turkish students. They teached the children two games that they play in Turkey. They also did a Turkish song about a little bird. The children imitated the moves of the song. The children really enjoyed these things.

I think it was a great idea to do this in the project. It was fun for the foreign students to do and it is good that children get in touch with differences and other cultures. I only think that it was pity that we had to do everything in 15 minutes. I thought that this time was to short.

Here are some pictures of my group in action: (They have done a great job!!!)

Week 3: From Monday (25 - 02- 2008) until Wednesday (27 - 02 - 2008)

Hello,

I have looked forward to this part of the project. The musical project started this monday. The theme is "ropes and knots". I am very enthousiast to learn more about it and i can't wait to do a musical project in a primary school about this theme.

We have done a lot of activities with buttons, ropes and knots.
I will give some exempels of the lessons we have had the past days about the musical project.

First lesson: General frame of the musical project
- using a rope in different ways
- making knots with your body
- making knots with different bodies
- playing a scene with the use of ropes in 3 different ways and in your own language
- walking on the cathwalk as a specific character
- playing a character out a story about a button.
- ...


Music and physical expression:
- Making movements with ropes on music.

- Doing as a mirror and make the same movements with the rope as the person in front of you.

- Making a composition in groups of 7 with different instruments. We had to use ropes and knots so that this activity connects with the theme.

- Making in group an artwork by placing one by one a piece of rope in a special way. On the background you could here some nice music while we made this piece of art.

- ...



Art
- Writing your name with a rope. When you colour a paper above this you can see your name an the paper in that colour.

- Making a story with ropes on the floor. After the figures were made with the ropes, we did sand on it. Afterwards we took the roop away and we could see all the figures in the sand.

- Making paintings with the use of paintbrushes wich are attached to ropes. These ropes are attached to bars of a table. By moving with the rope you can make a painting with the brushes. It is difficult, but it is a lot of fun to do!


Voice
- Walking trough the room in a certain way (normal, like a child, like a robot...) and great eachother by using the voice in different ways (hard, soft, fast, slow, melodious..)

- Making echosounds in an imaginable pit. We said our name and different words in a circle that stands for a pit. Everybody repeated those things. We used our voices again in different ways.

- Saying a peace of a poem at a special way in groups of 3. I have to say that it was’nt a normal poem. There were’nt real words in it. (oote oote oote a a a a ....) Afterwards all the peaces were said after eachother. You could here the whole poem. It was very nice to here that everyone has done somithing original with each peace by using the voice at a special way.

- Making a composition with the sounds of the poem. One person was a conductor and touched a button that belonged to a group. He touched the buttons in different orders and also together. When a button was touched of a group, they had to make the sound that belonged to them. It was really nice and funny to here all the sounds in a different order.

- Making a sentence with nonsense words. We made this up: “lilalo, lilale, lilali, lilala.” Afterwards we had to play a scene. We only could use the sentence of nonsense words. We had to make a scientific scene. We played aliens who were discovering the earth. It was really funny to do and to see wath the others had come up with.

- Making sounds by different kind of knots that were put next to a rope. When you walked next to the rope you had to make the sounds that belonged to the knots you passed. Everybody walked after eachother next to the rope and the different knots. It was beautifull to hear all the different sounds together.

- Playing the game ‘bomb’ with sounds connected to objects. One person leaves the room. The others choose a object that is the bomb. When the person comes in he has to collect as many objects as possible without touching the bomb. When the person chooses an object, we made the sound that was connected tot that object.

- ...

I liked all the sessions. The most things are very usefull to do in school with the pupils. They will love to do such things. I got a lot of ideas for activities that i can do with children about ropes, knots and buttons. I think it is good that we got ideas for all the different musical domains/divisions. (art, music, drama, voice, physical expression) It is important that you use al the different divisions when you make a musical project.
I have learned that you can do a lot of different, creative and amusing things in all different divisions with a simple object such as a rope. I think that i will do a musical project in the feature with other simple objects.

Week 1 and 2

I enterred the international program together with some other Belgian students:
- BaLO (teachers primary school): Sofie Herbots, Lore Lenaerts
- BaKO (teachers pre-primary school): Jamina Kellers, Stefanie Van den Driessche and Christel Jorissen.

The Belgian students are 'the godmothers' for te visiting students. We have to guide and help them trough the program.

I will tell something about the first two weeks of the program:

During the first week we got to know a group of fantastic students from other countries. (Greece, Turkey, Austria, Spain, Czech Republic)



The first day we went cycling with the students. We also had a welcoming ceremony, we ate Belgian fries and drunk some beers. It was realy nice to meet al this different people of other countries.

The following days we got a guided tour in Hasselt, in Brussels, in Alden Biesen and in Maastricht.
During these days i got to know all the students a little bit better. I think it is a NICE group and that we are going to have a lot of fun together.
The tours in the different places were really nice. I discoverred that there are a lot of things even i did not know of. For example: In the city 'Hasselt' where i study now for almost 3 years i saw a lot of places that i never saw before such as the beguinage, the basilica, some good chocolat chops... I can say that those tours were also verry enrichening for me.

Another thing that took place in the first two weeks, were the dutch lessons that the Belgian students had to give. It was nice to see how motivated all the students are to learn more about our language. It was also nice to hear from everybody that they enjoyed the lessons.
I have learned by giving these lessons a lot about teaching another language. It is important to speak a lot in the language and explain those things trough your bodylanguage. It is also important to support the language with actions, games...

The last thing that i want to tell is that we all had to do a presentation of our own country. I must say that everybody has done it very well. You could see, hear and even taste that everybody has put a lot of effort in it. We ate a lot of specialtees of different countries, we saw different dances presented by some students and everybody had a beautiful powerpointpresentation.

The presentations were a perfect ending for these two first weeks. We all got in touch with the differences and simularities between our own country and all the other countries.

Until now i am verry happy that i joined this international program.

I will soon fill you in about the rest of the program.

Greetings!

Presentation of Belgium

I live in Belgium.
Here are some movies and pictures about my country.

My first message

Hellow,
Welcome on my first weblog.



My name is Hanna Durlet.
I am 21 years old.
I live in Millen. That is a smal village in Limburg.

I'm a student in Hasselt at the KHLim (catholic highschool of Limburg). I am in the last year of becoming a teacher in the primary school.


My hobbies are: plaing the clarinet, going out with friends, shopping...

I love animals. Here are some pictures of some animals that we have at home.