How did the project start?

In the beginning of the May both teachers were writing emails trying to figure out the name of the project and what we would actually do.

In the 24th of April in 2006 Sari, the teacher of the second grade in Ohkola school, Mäntsälä, found an interesting message in eTwinning pages. A Creek school tried to find a partner for a project. The teacher, Mary wrote there that they are " Open to all ideas appropriate for primary school children".

Sari decided to contact Mary and wrote:

Hello! My name is Sari Auramo and I'm an elementary school teacher from Finland. The kids in my class will turn 9 this year (they were born in 1997). They speak only very little English at the moment, but will learn more all the time. I'm looking for a class with children of the same age. I'm thinking of a project, which at the beginning would be very simple emails and such, like "My name is... and my favourite animal is a dog". The teachers could write more and help the kids to learn more about each others. As the time would go by, the children could start to exchange information about their own countries etc. My pupils will be in our school for 4 more years. Let me know if you're interested in talking about this more.


http://peda.net/veraja/mantsala/ohkola

With greetings from sunny (at the moment) Finland, Sari Auramo


Mary replaied the same day:

Dear Sari

I am teaching English and I have children from 8-12. My third grade students who just started learning English will turn 9 this year (just like yours) and they will be in school for 4 more years. So we can start having a simple project as you mentioned for now and doing more next year and so on.

You can contact me directly at my email.

Looking forward to hearing from you

Mary Frentzou


And so the project started!