Story Time

The Blue Cross

The story takes place in London, Great Britain, in the 1910s.   

The main characters are the detective Valentin, Flambeau and the priest Brown.
Flambeau was the biggest criminal in those days. He was a very tall man.
Valentin was the chief of the Paris police, and he was chasing after Flambeau.
We liked them.
Valentin was our favorite character because he fought for justice.    
We really liked the story because it was very interesting.
The story is about Valentin, who is chasing after Flambeau, that is looking for a cross with blue stones.
Priest Brown left the trails for him to find and catch. Eventually, Valentin caught Flambeau.    
We liked the book very much because it had many interesting parts we needed to figure out. Our favorite part was when the priest revealed he switched the parcels and that Flambeau didn't have the cross. It was funny when Valentin was arguing with his colleagues.

The book is for everyone.

Ratka Sokola, Darko Tot, Aleksandra Ilijin and Aleksandra Bajić, VIII1

Too old to rock and roll   

The story takes place in Greg's house.   

The main characters are Greg, Valerie and Steve.
Greg is a young boy that plays in a band. Valerie was a 40-year-old woman, a friend of Steve.
Steve was the same age as Valerie, who lost his wife due to a car accident.
Our favorite character was Valerie because she was a nice woman who helped Greg's father feel alive again.   

The story is about a man called Steve who lost his wife in an accident, and his child Greg who tries to make him feel alive again along with his friend Valerie.
The book was short but interesting and the ending was both a happy and a sad one.

We liked the book and our favorite part was when Greg went on his band practice, and as he got back home he saw his dad and Valerie having a nice time speaking together in a romantic scene.
If we could make anything, we would make Steve be more than friends with Valerie, since she is like a mother to Greg.

Đura Šibul, Anđela Beloš, Vanja Pažin and Nađa Blažić, VIII2

As the Inspector Said

The story takes place at Robert's house and in the middle of the night.   

The main characters are Robert, his wife Sonia and her lover Charles.

Robert is nearly twice as old as Sonia. He is an old boring man who cares only about his books and silver.

Sonia and Charles are bad people because they want to kill Robert and to take his silver. I didn't really like them. They made me feel maybe it will sound stupid, but like a good person because I would never do what Sonia and Charles did.

The story is about Robert's wife Sonia and her lover Charles who want to steal Robert's silver that he bought.

It happened that someone broke into Robert's house while he was sleeping and his wife Sonia woke him up and told him that she heard strange voices and that the burglar was in the house. Then he took his gun and went downstairs. Sonia heard gun shots and thought Robert was dead, but he wasn't. He came into the room and when she said to him that she thought he was murdered and asked him what had happened, he said the burglar got away and that it was Charles that was murdered.

It was really fun to read, but I didn't like the ending because someone died.   

I liked the book and my favourite part was the beginning because I got to know the characters, what they are like and what they want to do.

I would change the ending because Charles died even if he was a bad person. There were maybe a little scary bits when the burglar broke into the house.

I learned that karma is a real thing. ha ha ha...

Everybody should read this book.

Anastasija Bugarski, VIII4

Kidnapped

Describe your least favourite character

My least favourite character was David's uncle Ebenezer Balfour.

When David's father passed away David needed to take the letter to his uncle. He walked 2 days until he got to the house of the Shaws. His uncle was living in that house. When David settled down his uncle told him to go outside and upstairs to get one box filled with papers. Because David's uncle didn't use lights David needed to go in the dark and he could easily die on those stairs. His uncle gave him also some money because he was supposed to give it to Alexander but he didn't. David knew something was going on because his uncle was trying to kill him.

Alexander was David's father. He passed away three weeks before David came to his uncle. That house belonged to Alexander and because he was dead the house was supposed to go to David. That is why his uncle was trying to kill him. Then he would not have to give the house to David.

Ebenezer is my least favourite character because he was trying to kill his nephew instead of trying to connect to David and to live with him.

Aleksandra Ilijin, VIII1, 19 December 2019

Online meetings

My younger students get very excited when they meet their friends from different European countries. 

 

This December, we organised two online meetings with our eTwinning project partners. We introduced ourselves, sang our favourite songs and even chanted.

Follow the Little Prince

Follow the Little Prince

Language Mission: Possible!

Language Mission: Possible!

Reading Challenge

My Class 8 students (13-14-year-olds) don't like reading books. However, they enjoy competitions. That's why I've challenged them to read three English graded readers in one month. I'm happy to say that most of them completed the challenge, so we organised presentations, with a quiz, of course.

No Water, No Life!

Our friends from Portugal have surprised us again when they sent us their amazing jigsaw puzzles, with messages. My Class 4 students enjoyed doing them, although they were a bit challenging for some.

Digital Lesson 2019

This autumn, I have taken part in the contest Digital Lesson organised by The Ministry of Trade, Tourism and Telecommunications Serbia and am happy to say that my lesson What's the weather like? was published in the online Collection of the Lessons in December.

Over 250 lessons have taken part in the contest, but only those which fulfilled the criteria of the contest are published in the Collection.

Christmas Cards Exchange

My Class 4 students were very creative this November and created beautiful cards for their peers around Europe.

Even my older students got caught with the Christmas spirit:

The World of Owls

After a rather demanding and challenging online National Geographic Educator Certification, I am honoured and proud to be awarded the National Geographic Educator Certification.

Time to Read

Divided in groups, my Class 8 students chose, read and shared their thoughts about different books:

David Copperfield by Charles Dickens

The story takes place in England, in the 19th century.
The main characters are David Copperfield, his mother Clara, their servant Peggotty and his aunt Betsey Trotwood.
David was a blonde, small boy that went through a lot of character development and childhood trauma. He is sweet by heart, innocent but naive.
Clara was a young woman and mother to David. She is fateful and loves her son very much.
Peggotty was an older lady that was gentle and selfless and that basically kept family together. She was really nice.
Betsey Trotwood was David's aunt that first appears as strict, but later we find out she is very nice as she agrees to take care of David when he was homeless.
They are very likeable characters.
David was really inspiring throughout the book because he really went through a lot of bad things and he managed not to give up.
Peggotty is our favourite character because she always made sure her family was alright.
This story is about David's life and the difficulties he experienced.
Everything that could go wrong, went wrong. As David was a little kid, his mother married a strict and rough man Edward Murdstone. His stepfather beat him everyday for a lot of little mistakes and later made him go to a boarding school. He met some really good friends, though. However, he meets one of them later in life, James Steerforth, that turns out not to be so good as David thought.
David, with his aunt's help, studies to become a lawyer. As he does, he meets Mr Wickfield who also helps him, but his assistant Uriah Heep makes him feel weird at the start. It later turns out he wanted to be the one in charge, not Mr Wickfield, and made him become drunk and not capable of working.
However, David also meets Agnes, Mr Wickfield's daughter that helps him figure out Steerforth wasn't as good as he thought and they become closer as Uriah wants to marry her. They later in life marry each other, but, before that, he meets Dora. He fell in love with her at first sight. Even though her father doesn't support their relationship, they marry. But, she dies because she was a very fragile and a weak woman. Her last wish was that Agnes should continue her role in David's life, meaning, she should become his wife.
In the end, they are happy and have a lot of children around them.
The book's not bad, but we think that it lacks description. The emotional scenes were pretty bland.
Our favourite part was when David ran away and his aunt decided willingly to take care of him. The moment his stepfather and his sister were in front of Betsey's house, we think that her reaction was priceless, as she shouted, 'Don't ride on my grass!' It was very funny.
The scary bits were the fact that David went through so much. His stepfather beat him often, he started working while being ten years old and his mother and spouse died. He had it very tough.
We learnt that we should never give up, and that there's always light at the end of the tunnel.
We recommend this book to everyone, just not kids younger than 10.

Aleksandra Bajić, Milica Jovanović and Aleksandra Ilijin, VIII1

Follow the Little Prince

I shared a short presentation of the book with my Class 4 students. Then we watched an animated film and compared it with the presentation. I checked their understanding and we talked a bit more about the characters and the important things in our life.

Before the next lesson I set up different activity stations around the classroom, and prepared the material for each station. The students grouped around the tasks which I explained, and added that they would move from one station to the next  when they finished their task:
- do the crossword;

- illustrate one of the characters;

- make a fox origami bookmark by watching the tutorial;

- draw your favourite scene on a jigsaw puzzle template;

- play an online flashcard game with the key words from the book;

- draw the Little Prince and one of the symbols of our town.

Judging by their comments, I think my students enjoyed this kind of work.

EQL 2019

A total of 1288 projects received the European Quality Label on 30 October for their outstanding work. I am proud to say that six projects I started and/or collaborated on with my students are among them:

• Professor Balthazar travels around Europe / Profesor Baltazar putuje Europom;
• A Funny School Year;
• Famous people in Europe;
• Hello, I am Charlie from London;
• A Bridge across the World;
• European Day of Languages Celebration.

The European Quality Label is awarded by the Central Support Service (CSS) to teachers in a project which:
- has been proposed for the European Quality Label by at least one National Support Service, after a screening process.
- includes at least two partners that have received the National Quality Label.

All about me

This autumn I asked my Class 8 students to create their own Padlets and post everything that interests them there. Here is the result.

eSafety

 Being safe online is very important. It's one of the topics we cover in our lessons as well.

My Class 4 students checked how much they know about eSafety in quizzes prepared by our eTwinning friends and later created their avatars. We used the Lino online board to post the avatars and write the introduction.

The Flex Programme

Branislav Nolin, a Grammar School student who spent 10 months in the USA as an exchange FLEX student organised an interesting presentation for Class 8 students on 3 October. 

First, he introduced the FLEX programme funded by the US Department of State, explained the criteria and methods of appying and testing. He also shared a few tips on how to complete the application.

Then, he talked about his host family and friends he met in the USA, his school, the town he lived in, voluntary work and his trip around the USA. 

A classroom full of students showed interest in the American laws, school subjects, and after school activities.

This was an excellent opportunity for Class 8 students to find out more about the American way of life and education system from a person who has recently experienced it. Several of them expressed their willingness to apply for the Scholarship in the next round.

European Day of Languages 2019

Most of this year's European Day of Languages activities were connected to language challenges and an eTwinning project Language Mission: Possible! founded by an Italian teacher and me. 

My younger students and I recorded video messages and learned how to count to 10 in different languages.

My older students decided on more than 30 language challenges.

We also organised language quizzes for our older students. They listened to and tried to guess the language spoken in the Which language is it? game or to match English and Serbian idioms. A few students also said poems in Greek, Spanish and Chinese. Judging by their comments, they all had a lot of fun. 

The activity is part of this year's Council of Europe Event Calendar and Intelligence Day events.

European Language Label 2019

For the first time this year, teachers from our country were given a chance to participate in the competition for innovative and creative initiatives in the field of teaching and learning languages.

I decided to send three applications to the competition and am proud that all three of the projects my students and I took part in were recognised as good examples and were awarded Certificates of Honour:

• Green Kids,
• Famous People in Europe and
• It is only with the heart that one can see rightly.

What's more, they're in the online collection of the examples of good practice.

NQL 2019

This July/August, our National eTwinning service awarded 309 projects with Quality Labels. Nine projects I started and/or collaborated on with my students are among them:

- Family Matters: A wide-ranging project

- My Place: Project activities are presented and visible with the involvement of students through planning, evaluations, materials. All participants worked on common topics, that are presented in a transparent way.
- Professor Balthazar travels around Europe: 3rd grade elementary school learners were active participants in the project. They exchanged drawings, videos, postcards with their peers from Europe.
- Green Kids: A well-planned and well-executed project. Visible results and good dissemination.
- A Bridge Across the World: This is a fairly structured project, with a high level of pupil’s involvement and products, many of which by using ICT tools.
- Famous People in Europe: Huge project (84 teachers, 492 pupils), plenty of materials. Serious division of duties. A large number of results.
- European Day of Languages Celebration: The project shows good organization and planning, as well as dedication and involvement of the founder of the project. Strong points are collaboration and use of various ICT tools.
- A Funny School Year: It seems that the participants have enjoyed very much having chance to see how other schools organize similar events. That is the main benefit of this project.
- Hello, I am Charlie from London: A simple and well-designed project.

My Place

In December 2018 my students and I joined the eTwinning project aimed at enhancing the artistic, cultural, culinary and other beauties of European places. The students and their teachers from Italy, Greece, Moldova, Portugal, Albania, Turkey and Azerbaijan shared photos, posters and videos of their towns and countries with the others. It was a great opportunity to, once again, promote our town.

Read this book made on StoryJumper

What's this?

Here's a song which helped my struggling students remember the names of school things. It was one of the first ones we learned this school year.

What's this? What's this?

It's a book. It's a book. It's a book.

(a pen / a rubber / a pencil)

III4

A Funny School Year

My students and I joined the project A Funny School Year last June because we wanted to share some special moments of our school life with the students and their teachers from other European countries.

Read this book made on StoryJumper

What's that?

When the school year is near the end, my students and I usually like flipping through our books and singing our favourite songs. 

This is one of the songs we learned earlier this school year. It is good for revising sea creatures and yes/no questions.

What's that? What's that?

Is it a seahorse? Is it a seahorse?

Yes, it is. Yes, it is.

What's that? What's that?

Is it a starfish? Is it a starfish? (a dolphin / a crab)

Yes, it is. Yes, it is.

What's that? What's that?

Is it a cat? No, it isn't.

Is it a turtle?

Yes, it is. Yes, it is.

  III4

Professor Balthazar cards

Four of my Class III2 students have decided to draw Professor Balthazar in Kikinda, so I later printed their drawings, let all the students sign those unique postcards and sent them to our eTwinning friends.

Milana

Petar

Anja

Nikola

A Bridge Across the World

The eTwinning project A Bridge Across the World centred around the topic of cultural heritage, so my students and I found out more about the amazing European places and customs.

Both my younger and older students took part in different activities, such as the presentations of our school, town and country, sharing celebrations, or a quiz about the project countries.

We also held a Skype meeting with our Portuguese partners. The students had the opportunity to talk about their interests in English and sing songs to their peers.

Plastic Waste

We talked about different environmental issues and tried to find possible solutions which was later turned into another story.

Read this book made on StoryJumper

Hello, I am Charlie from London

In June 2018 my younger students and I joined the eTwinning project which focused on the book by Stéphane Husar and Yannick Robert. We read the book, talked about our school, favourite subjects, food, families, daily routines and other topics covered in the book.

Ana

Several groups of my students also created Christmas cards for their eTwinning friends which we later sent by post.

Finally, my students created their own e-books and our Bulgarian partners chose the best one (Ana's) which was published in a common e-book called Hello, we are children from Europe.

Both my students and I enjoyed working on this creative project which included the schools from Bulgaria, France, Italy, Greece, Lithuania, Romania, Croatia and Ukraine.

Skyping with friends

talking with our Greek friends

My younger students enjoy online meetings with their friends from different European countries. Then, they can talk in English about the things they like.

Twinning of schools

The twinning of two schools with the same name - Sveti (Saint) Sava, but in different countries, Serbia and Bosnia and Herzegovina, was organised between 23 and 25 May in Foča, Bosnia and Herzegovina. 

 

The visit to the Town Museum, Clock Tower and the confluence of the Ćehotina into the Drina River was a beautiful experience for all of us. 

We also celebrated the European Day of Parks with our hosts by our visit to the Sutjeska National Park.

We finished our trip with the visit to Višegrad and Andrićgrad.

Around the World

We've recently read the text about different countries and their traditional clothes. That is why I brought a map of the world and asked my students to find different countries, including ours. I shared a tip with them - find the boot- shaped country and move your finger to the right, and there it is. 

To my pleasant surprise, most of them managed to do the tasks well. By the end of the lesson they were able to name and point to all the continents in the world.

What's the weather like?

My younger students are digital natives so it is no wonder that they enjoy most when we explore different apps. This time we tried HP Reveal and Metaverse in the lesson I created with the teachers from Greece, Italy and Croatia during the Learning Event on Digital Augmented Stories.

 

As usual, the lesson with different web tools turned out to be a success.

First, we talked about the weather and revised the vocabulary with flashcards and a mind map. Then, I asked my students what kind of weather they like, and it turned out that sunny and snowy are their favourites. Of course, I also asked them the reasons why they like or don't like certain kind of weather.

Later, I distributed the weather cards among the students and asked them to raise the appropriate one when they hear the word in the song which followed. It was fun.

After that, we read the story about the Wind and the Sun together, and whenever the Wind group heard their name, they had to make a sound or movement.

Read this book made on StoryJumper

The Sun group also made a sound and movement when they heard their name, so it was an interactive reading. It was followed by an online comprehension quiz.

Then, I told them that some pages in the book hide a surprise which can only be revealed by a special app.

After experimenting with this AR app, we moved on to different QR Codes which hide interesting videos and online games, so we played them one at a time.

Finally, we revised the weather words with online flashcards and sang the new song once again.