When Elmer Knocked on Our Door… Grupa Mare „Ursuleții” – Școala Gimnazială Nr. 3 Voluntari, Romania,ANDREI CRISTINA SIMONA

 

When Elmer Knocked on Our Door…

Grupa Mare „Ursuleții” – Școala Gimnazială Nr. 3 Voluntari, Romania
Journey 1 – Identity & Belonging · Story: Elmer

👂 1. We listened to the story

We sat in a circle and listened to Elmer’s story slowly, page by page. We looked at every illustration and noticed the grey herd and the one colourful elephant.
🌍 Out of Eden Learn: slow down, notice, listen. Before rushing to the end of the story, the children took time to look carefully at the pictures.

💬 2. We talked about it

Afterwards we discussed Elmer’s feelings and choices. Why did he want to be grey? How did his friends feel when he came back colourful? What would the world be like if we were all the same? There was no single correct answer. Every child’s idea was welcome, and the children listened to each other’s opinions.
💭 Visible Thinking: express ideas, explain reasoning, listen to different perspectives. The children explained why they thought what they thought.

🧩 3. We rebuilt the story

We used Paul’s Travel Notes and the picture summary sheet. With them, the children put the events back in order and retold the story in their own words.
💭 Visible Thinking: make connections, reflect. Retelling showed us what the children understood and remembered.
🌍 Out of Eden Learn: document. The travel notes became a record of our journey through the story.

🤝 4. We learned to work in pairs and to wait our turn

All the children coloured one single Elmer together. They came to the table two at a time. The two partners coloured side by side, agreed on the colours and shared the space on the page. Meanwhile, the other children waited patiently for their turn without disturbing the pair at work. Patch by patch, pair after pair, our Elmer grew more and more colourful. In the end, every child had left their own colours on it. Our Elmer belongs to the whole group, made of many small pieces, just like us.
📖 Story-Based Inquiry: learn with others, connect stories with real life. The children did not only hear that differences make us stronger together. They lived it, building one shared Elmer from everyone’s colours.
💭 Visible Thinking: listen to others. Waiting, watching their friends’ work and continuing it respectfully meant paying attention to someone else’s ideas.

💌 5. We sent our message to our partners

At the end, the children held the Romanian flag and recorded a message for their friends in the partner schools.
🌍 Out of Eden Learn: connect local experiences with the wider world. Our small classroom story became one of the many stories of our European community.

🌈 What we discovered

Each of us is different, and our differences make our group colourful. Elmer’s story did not end when we closed the book. It continued in our classroom, in our shared drawing and in our message to Europe.
One Elmer, 28 little artists.
Be kind. Be yourself. Be Elmer! 🐘

https://canva.link/p0fv4mlk5ag29pa

Journey 1 begins: Identity & Belonging with Elmer 🐘🌈

Our eTwinning project One World, Many Stories has started its first journey! This month, our preschoolers from 5 countries and 7 schools (Romania, Greece, Türkiye, Lithuania and Croatia) set out together on a journey about identity and belonging.

Our story companion is Elmer by David McKee, the patchwork elephant who believed he had to look like everyone else, then learned that being different is something to celebrate. Our guide on the road is Paul Salopek, the journalist who is walking across the world and listening to people’s stories. In the first issue of Paul’s Travel Notes, Paul reminds us that every place has its own colours, and that everywhere he goes, people want to feel welcome, valued and part of a community.

Our Big Question for this journey is:
“How can our differences help us build one learning community?”

Inspired by Project Zero’s Visible Thinking and Slow Looking, and by Paul’s way of learning while walking, our partners have prepared six collaborative activities:

📖 Elmer – Opening Activity (Paul’s Travel Notes, Issue 01)
All groups meet Elmer’s story, look closely at the colourful elephant among the grey ones, and share what makes each child special.

🚪 When Elmer Knocked on Our Door… (Welcome Chain)
Proposed by Sweety Begum, Özel Beştepe İlkokulu, Türkiye
Each class records a short video with their country’s flag and one local natural element, and says “Welcome!” in their native language. Together, the videos become one European Welcome Video.

🟦🟥🟩 Pieces of Me, Pieces of Us – The Walker
Proposed by Carmen Duta, Școala Gimnazială Nr. 3 Voluntari, Romania
Each school creates one part of a shared traveller (head, eyes, ears, hands, heart, legs or backpack) using natural materials. Piece by piece, our Walker will be made of our five countries.

🎨 The Colours That Make Us Unique
Proposed by Andrei Cristina Simona, Școala Gimnazială Nr. 3 Voluntari, Romania
Children choose the colours that express who they are and add their drawings to one shared digital artwork on Magma: “Different Colours, One Colourful World.”

🎵 Elmer’s Friendship Dance Chain – The Little Book of Friendship
Proposed by Panagiota Daliou, 4th Kindergarten of Lamia, Greece
Without a shared language, children tell a story of friendship through movement, gestures and voices. Each group watches the previous video, learns its movement, and adds a new “page” to the chain.

👣 Footsteps of Belonging – Earth Beneath Our Feet, Sky Above Our Heads
Proposed by Tatjana Gladović, Kindergarten Ježeva kućica-Beretinec, Croatia, and Panagiota Daliou, 4th Kindergarten of Lamia, Greece
Working in international pairs, groups photograph their shoes together in a circle and the sky above their school. In Book Creator, the photographs become a mosaic of the places where we live and belong.

A warm thank you to all our partners for these creative, thoughtful activities. Each one invites our children to slow down, look closely, and discover that their differences are what make our community colourful.

Different makes us special. Belonging makes us strong. 💜

🐘💻 EU Code Week- Paul’s First Coding Footstep: Find Our Elmer!

Activity Materials

Download, print and you are ready to play!

Common Coding Grid

Download

Paul & Arrow Cards

Download

EU Code Week Registration Details

Our activity has been officially approved on the EU Code Week map! 

You can register your own school's participation in this shared challenge using the details below:

•  EU Code Week Platform: codeweek.eu (or sign in directly via codeweek.eu/login)
•  Code Week 4 All Code: cw26-vAMMu 

ONE CODE — TWO CLASSROOMS Choose a partner • Create • Exchange • Decode Choose a school that does not have a partner yet. Write both school names in the table below. Add your arrow code to your school’s slide. Keep the destination secret! Decode your από Panagiota Daliou

🌍 First steps: building Our Learning Community

 Before setting out on our first journey, we took time to get to know each other and to build our Learning Community. Every good journey starts with knowing who is walking beside you.

🏫 Meet Our Schools
Each partner school opened its doors and introduced the place where its children learn and play every day.

👩‍🏫 Meet Our Teachers
The teachers behind the project introduced themselves, so that our partnership has real faces, voices and stories.

👧👦 Meet Our Children
Our groups presented themselves to their new European friends: who they are, what they like and what makes their group special.

🗺️ Our Interactive Map
We placed all our schools on one shared map, so the children can see where their friends live and how our journey connects five countries.

🎒 Project Corners & Paul Around Europe
Paul Salopek, our travelling companion, arrived in our classrooms.

• In Our Project Corners, each group created a special space for the project, where Paul’s travel notes, maps, stories and children’s discoveries can grow throughout the year.
• In Our Collaborative Logo, the children’s ideas came together into one logo: the first product we made together, and a symbol of our shared identity.

With our community in place, we were ready for the road. And the first story waiting for us was Elmer’s… 🐘🌈

Stories as Windows to the World

 

📚 Stories as Windows to the World

In One World, Many Stories, picture books introduce themes such as identity, belonging, fairness and caring for others.

Through the characters’ experiences, children explore each journey’s Big Question, consider different points of view and make connections with their own lives.

Each story becomes a starting point for dialogue and inquiry that continues beyond the book, into children’s classrooms and communities.

 

"Every picture book is a window that helps us see the world—and ourselves—with new eyes."

Paul’s Travel Notes

 

Every Journey Begins with a Story from the World

At the beginning of each journey, Paul shares his travel notes in our newspaper. His observations and questions invite children to connect the world around them with the story we explore.

Through each journey, children observe, ask questions, explore ideas and share discoveries with their friends across Europe.

Paul does not give us the answers — he helps us find questions worth exploring together!

🌍 Observe • Think • Explore • Collaborate • Reflect

Paul's Backpack

 

 More Than a Backpac

Paul’s backpack is a collection of resources that support our learning journeys: maps, picture books, photographs, natural materials and observation tools.

Connected to our stories and Paul’s travel notes, these resources help children observe, ask questions and explore together.

Teachers can choose and adapt materials to suit each journey and their children’s interests.

 

''The most meaningful journeys often begin with the simplest object''

Meet Paul

 

Our travelling companion

Paul is our curious travelling companion throughout the project.

Through his travel notes, he connects our stories with everyday life and invites children to explore their own communities, listen to different perspectives and share discoveries with friends across Europe.

He does not provide answers — he encourages children to ask their own questions.

Paul reminds us that...

''The greatest adventures don't happen far away.

They begin when we look more carefully at the world around us''.

How We Learn

 Every monthly journey follows the same learning cycle.

Inspired by the philosophy of Out of Eden Learn and the Visible Thinking approach of Project Zero, children gradually move from curiosity to observation, inquiry, collaboration and reflection.

Rather than completing isolated activities, they engage in a shared learning journey where every mission encourages them to explore their own community, exchange ideas with children from other European countries and co-create meaningful experiences together.

This learning cycle is repeated throughout the project, giving children a familiar structure while allowing every new story to open a different window to the world.

Every story begins with a mission, but every journey ends with new questions, new friendships and new discoveries.

Story-Based Inquiry

 

Every story opens a new journey.

In One World, Many Stories, children's picture books are not the final destination—they are the starting point for exploration.

Each carefully selected story invites children to observe their surroundings, ask meaningful questions, investigate real-life connections and discover different perspectives.

Stories become windows to the world, helping children connect imagination with everyday life and transform curiosity into meaningful learning experiences.

Rather than simply listening to a story, children actively explore, create, collaborate and reflect, turning every story into a shared journey of discovery.

📚 Through Story-Based Inquiry, children learn to:

📖 Connect stories with real life

❓ Ask meaningful questions

🔎 Explore their environment

🤝 Learn with others

🌍 Discover different perspectives

''Every story begins in a book, but continues in the world around us."

Project Zero & Visible Thinking

 

Making children's thinking visible

At the heart of our project lies a simple but powerful idea:

Children's thinking matters.

Inspired by the Visible Thinking approach developed by Project Zero (Harvard Graduate School of Education), we encourage children not only to answer questions but also to explain their ideas, share their reasoning and listen to different perspectives.

Throughout the project, children use simple thinking routines that help them observe carefully, express their thoughts, make connections and reflect on their learning.

Rather than searching for one "correct" answer, they learn that every thoughtful idea contributes to a richer understanding of the world.

💭 Through Visible Thinking, children learn to:

👀 Observe carefully

💬 Express their ideas

🔗 Make connections

🤝 Listen to others

🌱 Reflect on their learning

''Learning becomes meaningful when children's thinking becomes visible''

Out of Eden Learn

 

Walking slowly. Observing deeply. Connecting meaningfully.

Out of Eden Learn inspires children to slow down, observe their surroundings with curiosity and discover the extraordinary hidden in everyday life.

Instead of rushing to find answers, children learn to notice, wonder, listen and document what they see, hear and experience.

In our project, this philosophy becomes the foundation of every monthly journey. Through simple explorations, outdoor observations and meaningful exchanges with partner schools, children gradually discover that every place has stories worth sharing and every person has a unique perspective.

By connecting their own experiences with those of children from other European countries, they begin to understand that although our communities may be different, we all belong to One World enriched by Many Stories.

🌱 At the heart of Out of Eden Learn, children learn to:

👀 Observe carefully

❓ Ask meaningful questions

👂 Listen to different perspectives

📝 Document their discoveries

🌍 Connect local experiences with the wider world

''Slow observation helps children discover the extraordinary in everyday life''

eTwinning annual theme "Future-ready schools"

 One World, Many Stories embodies the inclusion pillar of eTwinning's "Future-ready schools" theme. Inspired by Harvard's Project Zero and the Out of Eden Learn approach, the project uses picture books from different cultures as a pathway to slow observation, visible thinking, and meaningful dialogue. Children learn to appreciate multiple perspectives and recognise that every person — regardless of background or country — has a unique story worth sharing. In building this culture of empathy, curiosity, and belonging across five partner countries (Romania, Greece, Lithuania, Türkiye, Croatia), the project supports an inclusive, welcoming school community where every child's voice matters.

🌍 About the Project

 

One World, Many Stories

Children learn to understand the world not only by reading stories, but by observing, questioning, listening and sharing their own experiences.

One World, Many Stories is an innovative eTwinning project for preschool children inspired by the educational principles of Project Zero (Harvard Graduate School of Education) and the Open Canopy / Out of Eden Learn approach.

Through carefully selected children's picture books from different cultures, pupils gradually develop the habits of slow observation, visible thinking, storytelling and meaningful dialogue.

Rather than focusing on the stories themselves, the project uses children's literature as a pathway to develop curiosity, empathy, communication, collaboration and global citizenship.

Each monthly story becomes the starting point for exploration, encouraging children to look closely at their surroundings, discover connections between people and places, appreciate multiple perspectives and recognise that every person has a unique story worth sharing.

Through classroom investigations, outdoor observations, creative activities and exchanges with partner schools, children discover that although they live in different countries, they all belong to One World enriched by Many Stories.

🌍 Our Vision

We don't teach stories.

We teach children to see the world through stories.

🤝 What Makes Our Project Special?

✔ Story-based learning

✔ Slow observation

✔ Visible Thinking

✔ Meaningful collaboration

✔ Child voice

✔ Global citizenship

One World, Many Stories

 Children learn to understand the world not only by reading stories, but by observing, questioning, listening and sharing their own experiences. One World, Many Stories is an innovative eTwinning project for preschool children inspired by the educational principles of Project Zero (Harvard Graduate School of Education) and the Open Canopy / Out of Eden Learn approach. Through carefully selected children's picture books from different cultures, pupils gradually develop the habits of slow observation, visible thinking, storytelling and meaningful dialogue. Each monthly story becomes the starting point for exploration, encouraging children to look closely at their surroundings, discover connections between people and places, appreciate multiple perspectives and recognise that every person has a unique story worth sharing. Rather than focusing on the stories themselves, the project uses children's literature as a pathway to develop curiosity, empathy, communication, collaboration and global citizenship. Through classroom investigations, outdoor observations, creative activities and exchanges with partner schools, children discover that although we live in different countries, we all belong to One World enriched by Many Stories. Our goal is not to teach stories. We teach children to see the world through stories.