3rd PROJECT 2009/2010
Once upon a time, a severe storm caught a sailor named Karlo by surprise. He was shipwrecked and found on the shore of an island by a beautiful girl. Karlo immediately fell in love with her. It turned out she was the daughter of the island’s commander. Karlo and the commander’s daughter decided to get married but faced a problem. The commander agreed to the wedding only if Karlo could solve three challenges, thereby proving he was truly worthy of his daughter.
The commander set the following tasks:
TASK 1: bring me a beautiful object that would stay on the island forever (symbol)
TASK 2: bring me paper images of the fauna and flora from your homeland
TASK 3: show me the world you live in (theatre)
Karlo thought the tasks were too difficult to handle on his own, so he sought help. After a few unsuccessful attempts, he decided to visit the children at Trnovo Kindergarten having heard they had already helped King Matthias and the space creature Traja. Together, they managed to resolve all the challenges. They spend the whole year discovering, inquiring and creating summing up what they had learned in a real theatre adventure at the Puppet Theatre. They invited the commander of the island as well as their parents. By completing all the tasks and successfully facing all the challenges (including the shipwreck, rescue scenes, getting to know each other and Karlo and Mirabela falling in love) Karlo was able to return to his life as a sailor.
Research areas: geography, architecture, cultural heritage, folk tradition, intercultural education, social curriculum, communication, art, theatre – in relation to all other curricular areas – language, science, movement, mathematics.
The project’s focus was on interculturalism, cultural heritage, and art. With this project, we aimed to show the children the world as a magical diversity of places, people and their ways of life, and to present the possibilities for interpersonal communication. The idea for the project stemmed from a desire to better understand and become familiar with the children in our kindergarten, as well as their families, their cultures and traditions. We were eager to deepen their relationships and communication with one other. Our kindergarten community is enriched by children with diverse cultural backgrounds and nationalities. To celebrate this diversity, we invited the parents to present their native countries to the children. The parents showcased Italy, France, Iceland, Greece, America, Egypt, Africa, New Zeeland bringing various images and music sources, traditional clothing, culinary delights; they shared different songs and taught us traditional dances. By using puppet as a medium, the educators managed to add, connect and give meaning to the parents’ contributions and thus created a story about Karlo’s journeys and his romantic relationship.
