2nd Primary School of Kaisariani, Greece
Our
school, the 2nd Primary school of Kaisariani, Athens, is situated in
Kaisariani, an area at the foot of mountain Imittos and a few kilometres
from the center of Athens, the capital of Greece. We are near some
famous landmarks like the hill of the Acropolis and the Parthenon and
various museums. We have 256 students aged 6-12 and 33 members of staff.
Our students come from middle-class families and quite a few of them
are students with special educational needs and a couple are students
with special needs.
Through this project we wish to upgrade the quality of the education
that we offer to our students and enrich our curriculum by helping our
students to communicate with students from other countries and learn
first-hand about their cultures.We consider the inclusion of students
with special needs and special educational needs is very important since
we have a significant number of such students. Another important motive
we have is to help our students aquire life skills like team work and
collaboration with others in a multi-cultural environment and develop a
positive attitude towards learning. We believe that such projects help
young students improve both academically and emotionally and gain an
overall satisfaction by combining fun and learning. Last but not least
the use of technology will help all of us, teachers and students alike,
to aquire computer literacy. In a rapidly changing world we want to
familiarize our students with their past so that they know who they are
and where they come from. A way to achieve this is through tradition and
cultural heritage.We also want our students to develop a sense of
European identity by learning about the culture of other European
countries.
The key people in this project are Mr Giannis Kyriazopoulos, the
headmaster of the school, and Mrs Dionysia Amorginou, english teacher as
the contact person.
PRESENTATION OF OUR SCHOOL
A SUMMARY OF OUR ACTIVITIES SO FAR PRESENTED BY OUR STUDENTS
OUR PARTICIPATIONS FOR THE LOGO CONTEST
These are the students' drawings for the logo contest:
CALENDAR

We asked all the students to draw old crafts. Since our school has 12 classes we asked each class to produce drawings of a specific old craft. So, here is the outcome!
Our Erasmus plus corner is ready!
EASTER PROJECT
Hello dear friends! Since schools in Greece have been closed for many months and we haven't been able to engage our students in hand crafts, we decided to share with you some of our Easter customs. Our students also wanted to prepare two online games for you. We hope you have fun!
Hopefully our schools will open on 10th May and then we will start working on our project. Our students already have a lot of ideas to put into practice!
Until then, please, enjoy yourselves!
Flip Book:
1st Game:
2nd Game:
CHRISTMAS PROJECT
Greek customs:
Greek customs and traditions
Cards and comics:
Christmas cards & comics
OUR MAIN PROJECT
Our project is based on interdisciplinary and group co-operative learning as it combines various school subjects ( History, Art and Information Technology. We took inspiration from ancient Greece and other Mediterranean countries where we can find a plethora of ceramic pots and plates dating back to ancient years. After examining the representations and motifs of ancient pottery and discussing about them and their use, we painted on the pots and plates various pictures inspired by antiquity and combined with modern elements. Our works of art are exhibited in a special room in our school while at the same time they can be found in digital form since we have created a virtual museum with our exhibits.
PREPARATIONS
Our exhibition at school
Our virtual museum
Visit the virtual museum
DISSEMINATION
At the end of the school year we invited Mr. Emmanouil Kitsellis, Vice Mayor of Education, Civil protection, Tourism, Ecology and Mrs Artemis Hatzigogou, President of the Parents' Association, in order to inform them about our Project. The Vice Mayor is going to disseminate our work to the community through social media and other activities. The President of the Parents' Association is also going to present our work to all the parents of our school and publish it on their facebook account. Special thanks to our community!
From right to left:
Mr. E. Kitsellis, Vice Mayor of Education, Civil protection, Tourism, Ecology, Mrs M. Sfakianou, Teacher, M.Ed. Phd cand., Mrs D. Tsoutsou, Teacher, Vice Head Mistress, M.Sc., Mr. J. Kyriazopoulos, Principal, M.Sc., Phd camd., Mrs Dionysia Amorginou, Teacher, Erasmus Co-ordinator.
1st TRIP TO POMANIA, 26-29 SEPTEMBER 2021
In September we organised the first LTT in Romania where we discussed about the program so far and about our future activities. We also had the chance to visit the Romanian school and see their students engaged in various old crafts activities. We exchanged good practices with our partners and enhanced mutual cultural understanding. When we came back we informed both our colleagues and our students about this unique experience in Romania.
We also created a short video for our students...
DISSEMINATION IN GREECE
Then, we engaged our students in some of the Romanian activities. They painted on jars which they sold at the Christmas bazar we organised for Christmas...
They drew on our classroom windows and decorated them with Christmas pictures...
And then, we made Christmas cookies...
And traditional Greek "melomakarona"
So, after all these, we were ready for the video conference on the 9th of December. We joined the virtual meeting and shared our activities with our partners!
For Christmas we also organised a Christmas Bazar. With the help of our Arts teacher, the students created a lot of beautiful handcraft like ornaments, little snowmen and a lot more, and sold them at the Christmas Bazar.
Apart from the bazar, they watched "Karagiozis", shadow-puppet theatre, a craft that is now disappearing.
They also wrote their wishes for Christmas and the New Year and hung them on some trees in the schoolyard, creating the "Tree of Wishes"
2nd TRIP TO POLAND - VIRTUAL LTT 14-18 MARCH 2022
From 14 to 18 March, 2022, we had our second LTT, to Poland. Unfortunately, the war in Ukrain broke out, so most partners, apart from Italy, decided not to risk travelling to Poland. Instead, we organised a virtual mobility.
Monday, 14/03/2022
On the first day of the mobility, after watching out Plish partners welcoming the Italian team, we worked with the loom. The art teacher of the school had already worked with the loom with the students of the 6th grade, and we showed our partners the result of our work. We also shoewed them how to weave! A PowerPoint presentation follows!
Tuesday, 15/03/2022
On the second day of the mobility we organised an exhibition of traditional objects. The students of the second grade asked their parents and grandparents to help them. Some of the grandparents come from families that came as refugees from Minor Asia in 1922, and they had brought with them various household items like coffee grinders, mortar and pestle, incense burners, old irons heated with coal, oil lamps, old coins and candlesticks, a shawl made with crochet, old telephones. The little students arranged these objects nicely in a classroom with the help of their teachers and the students of the whole school visited the exhibition and admired all these exhibits.
Wenesday, 16/03/2022
Wednesday was the day for the Votive Offerings. The art teacher of the school had been working with our students for a while and created these votive offerings. Votive offerings are objects displayed or deposited in sacred places in for religious purposes. They are generally made in order to gain favour with supernatural forces. They have been a distinctive element in Greek Tradition throughout history. In ancient Greece they were small objects deposited in temples or at the feet of statues of gods in order to ask for the help of the gods and in modern greece they are still displayed in our churches. They are small plaquettes made of silver or gold on which is carved a picture displaying what favour the person has asked from god or a saint. A sailor in danger, for example, may offer a votive offeringdepicting a ship, an ill or injured person will offer a votive showing the part of the body which was in danger. These votives are hung on religious icons in churches.
Thursday, 17/03/2022
Thursday was one day before Easter holidays, so we decided to make a traditional sweat, Lady Lent. Lady Lent is the figure of a woman with 7 legs, crossed hands, a cross on her head and no moouth! It is used as a callendar to count the 7 weeks of the fasting period that lead to Easter Sunday. She has crossed hands and a cross on her head because she is praying, and she has no mouth so that she won't utter bad words! So, we worked with our sixth graders, found the recipe, and let them use their dexterity and imagination!
Friday, 18/03/2022
Friday was the last day of our virtual LTT and it was the day when we presented the interview with a local craftsman and also a video with local dances! Our 6th graders interviewed Mr Ampatzis, who worked in the National Opera creating theatrical scenery.
In the following link you can watch the interview.
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1Umk0WHCn7f53v92eLfxdAGRU7huKqx7O/view?usp=sharing
We also uploaded a video with four traditional dances from Greece. You can watch our students dancing them!
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1dCJV4OhsSeavVchiGFnNEzVpuDIH3fPa/view?usp=sharing
3rd TRIP -LTT IN CYPRUS, 16-20 MAY 2022
DAY 1
On Monday it was the first day of our mobility to Cyprus. In the morning all participants gathered at the conference hall of the hotel, where Mrs Niki Pieridou, the headmistress of Dimotiko Scholeio Kakopetrias welcomed us. Also, a representative of the Ministry of Tourism welcomed the delegations.
Then we all walked to school where our Cypriot friends had prepared a warm welcoming ceremony with speeches, songs, traditional dances.
After the celebration, we were teated with traditional snacks
And then, our Cypriots friends showed us around their wonderful village
DAY 2
On the second day of the mobility we were taken on a tour of the nearby villages, where we had the chance to admire traditional arts and crafts.
First we visited Agios Nikolaos tis Stegis church, a monument protected by UNESCO
Then we went to the Folk Museum...
A traditional shoemaker...
A pottery workshop...
The railway that is now a museum
A traditional watermill
And we finally made traditional sweets
DAY 3
On the third day of the LTT in Cyprus we visited the seaside town of Limassol where we admired the castle with its ancient monuments.
DAY 4
On the 4th day of the LTT we visited the capital of Cyprus, Nicosia, a city split in two parts. Half of it belongs to the Cypriots, half of it belongs to the Turks. In order to go to the Turkish side you have to pass through customs and show either a passport or an ID.
First we visited Cyprus' Handicraft centre where our students saw traditional arts and crafts exhibited by local craftsmen/women
And then we walked around Nikosia
DAY 5
On the last day of our trip we went to the school again, where the teachers discussed about the following LTTs and the students played together. Then we all went to Marina's Rope Park where the students had fun climbing on the ropes.
In the evening we had our farewell party
On the 19th of October2022, two of our teachers, Ms Demetra Tsoutsou and Ms Maria Sfakianou participated in a Conference organized by the Management of Secondary Education of Western Attica, in which they presented our work with the Erasmus plus.
The Conference was titled :
Cross-Cultural Education: equality, acceptance, integration


October-November 2022
In October we started working with the first old craft which we will present in the project's e-book, 'Karagiozis'. The first thing we did was to invite Mr Balourdos, grandfather of one of our first graders, who is one of the last few shadow puppet theatre players. He gladly accepted our invitation and came to our school, bringing his puppets together, and explained to our students the secrets of this old craft. He showed them how shadow puppets are made, the origins of this craft, the characters that are portrayed.
Two weeks after that he came to our school again and put up a performance for our younger students, with the help of some of our 6th graders.
Now our students have to find information about Karagiozis, pictures, or videos and prepare what we are going to include in the e-book!
In November we started working with Bagpiper, the second craft we are going to include in the E-book. We were lucky this year, as one of our teachers, Mr Giorgos Berzigianidis is also a professional player of the musical instrument we call 'gaida', or else bagpipe. The students of the 5th and 6th Grades gathered in the gymnasium where he explained to them how the bagpipe is made and how he playes music with it. Then he played and we all danced together!
At the same time, we have already started working with mosaics, as we have to participate in an online meeting according to schedule. So, we found old tiles, broke them into small pieces by putting them in old towels,bought pieces of plywood and glue and ... off we went!
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The Arts teacher used this painting by Rene Francois Ghislain Magritte , a representative of Surrealism, whose works of art blend the unconcious with reality. In 1928 he created this painting called 'Le faux miroir' in which he depicts a human eye without eyelashes, with the iris showing a cloudy sky.
This is the mosaic created by our students.
In November we started working with the second craft for our book, the traditional musical instrument bagpipe and the instrument player.
For Christmas we prepared cards for us and for our pαrtners
We decorated our tree with them and with the cards we recieved from our partners
We decorated our classroom windows ourselves
and we made decorations
We also made sweets in class...
our snowmen are ready!
The day before Christmas we engaged our students in a game of treasure hunt. We gave them riddles to solve and when they found the answer to the last riddle they also found a surprise waiting for them in their classroom!
... their Christmas presents...
2nd February, 2023
Today we had an online meeting with our partners in which all schools presented their work with mosaics. This is our powerpoint
LTT in Slovakia 13-17 February 2023
Day 1
On the 1st day of the mobility in Zdana we were welcomed by our hosts in the cultural centre, where we watched traditional dances and listened to traditional songs sung by students of the school.
Then we went to the school ...



In the afternoon we watched a wonderful performance with traditional dances!
Day 2
On the second day of the mobility we went to the High Tatras, beautiful mountains with a lot of things to admire.
We visited the Museum of Ice...
... and finally Tricklandia...
Day 3
On the 3rd day of the mobility we attended workshops.
After a warm welcoming....
We saw how bobin lace is made...
And then, wood carving...
Time for relaxation...
In the afternoon it was time for dancing. This time we visited a Folklore Academy and had great fun!
Day 4th
On the fourth day of the mobility in Slovakia we had a tour around Kosice.
... then a cup of coffee...
and a pottery workshop

In the afternoon we had the farewell dinner, one day earlier as Italy left early the following morning.
Day 5
On the 5th day of the mobility we went on an excursion.
First we visited Solivar Museum where we learnt about salt mining.
... and after that we visied an opal mine! What an experience to go underground!
January 2023
The Arts teacher of our School, Mrs Danae Batsi worked with our students and created Cycladic figurines with carton. Our students' works of art were sent to the annual competition that is organised by the Museum of Cycladic Art.
February 2023
With the guidance of Mrs Batsi, our students drew sketches and used them to create animation.
March 2023
Engraving on Styrofoam and printing.
Our students used styrofoam, engraved it to portay famous works of art covered it with watercolours and used it as a stamp to create pictures.











































April 2023
Our students used plasticine to create models and used them as stamps to print on paper.
LTT in Palermo-Sicily 17-19 April 2023
Day 1
On the 1st day of the LTT in Palermo we visited the Italian school where we had a warm welcoming
Then we visited the Ethnographic Museum
And finally Mondello village
Day 2
On the second day of our mobility we first visited villa Palagonia
Then we learnt the traditional craft of painting on carts
and finally we had a guided tour of Palermo
Day 3
On the third day of our trip we visited Carini Castle where we saw Sicilian puppets
...we attended a workshop...
and in the evening we had our farewell dinner
LTT IN GREECE
DAY 1
On the first day of the mobility we welcomed our guests at school. Our students had prepared a celebration. They sang traditional songs of our partners', danced traditional dances and acted out the myth of the abduction of Europe by Zeus.
Then our guests attended workshops...
we visited the Monastery of Kaisariani and learned about its history, we also learned about how the flora and fauna of the area and each school adopted a nature trail.
Then we went to the Shooting Range of Kaisariani which is the largest park in the area and has a long history
and finally we had lunch at a traditional restaurant
Day 2
On the second day of the mobility we started with a tour around the centre of Athens
Then we visited the Museum of ceramics where we attended workshops
After the museum of ceramics we visited the Acropolis, admired the Parthenon and learned historical and mythological elements.
Then we visited the Acropolis Museum.
... and then we had a stroll around Plaka, a beautiful area with neo-classical buildings and ended our day in a traditional tavern.
Day 3
On the third day of our mobility we went to Nafplion, where we had a guided tour conducted by high school students who also participate in erasmus programs.
and had lunch in Tolo.
Day 4
On the fourth day of our mobility we first went to the Marathon Tomb where our guestd learned about the history of the place.
And after that we visited the Archaeological Museum of the Marathon to admire ancient artefacts.
Then we went to the European Museum of bread where not only did we learn about the decoration of bread in different regions of Greece, but we also made our own pasta-goglies-and had them for lunch!
In the evening we had our farewell dinner at a traditional tavern in Plaka.
Day 5
On the fifth day of our mobility we first visited the Floating Museum Battleship Georgios Averof.
We had a stroll around Flisvos Marina
... And finally we had lunch at Rosalia restaurant
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