21 Jan Day 1 in Europe : how to integrate migrant children on their first day at school ?
LABA and 7 European partners have launched in 2020 the Erasmus+ project: DAY 1 in Europe. Its objective? Explore and valorise the mother tongue of allophone migrant children (who do not speak the language of the host country) and propose it as a pedagogical resource and not as an element of differentiation. Its impact? To promote the integration of allophone migrant children in their country of arrival.
The project proposes to create an educational kit for the first day of school for these children. This kit will be composed of 5 boxes: “lunch box”, “music box”, “mail box”, “playing box” and “langugage box”. Several primary school classes in France, Italy and Belgium are already experimenting with certain tools.
The innovation of this project also lies in the partnership, composed of schools, artists, trainers, researchers and a culinary anthropologist.
Discover the first two boxes being tested: the mail box – on writing and the lunch box – on food.
Mail box
The aim of the “mail box” is to create a link between the pupils of the different partner schools.
The 7 classes of the project started experimenting with the “mail box” in December 2020. In a first workshop, the children wrote cards and sent them out just before the Christmas holidays. They described their passion.
Soon, they will do another writing workshop around memory and then around meaning. Later, they will start an autobiographical writing exercise, exploring their daily environment, emotions and rhymes. Finally, they will illustrate their stories with drawings and pictures.
Lunch box
The aim of the lunch box is to make the link between food and the acquisition of the language of the host country, and to enrich children’s taste education through an approach based on anthropology.
The first workshop, which takes place in January 2020, aims to discover taste. The second aims to allow the discovery of oneself, one’s own tastes, one’s sensitivity as well as the sensitivity of others. The third wants to allow the acquisition of vocabulary related to taste, food and the cultural dimension of taste. The last objective is more anthropological and seeks to feed and conduct a survey on children’s eating habits.
In addition, time for exchanges will be proposed: WHEN? the first will focus on taste and sensoriality and taste and culture: from me to the other. Through questionnaires and surveys on eating practices carried out by the children in their families, the “lunch box” will reveal the practices and customs of each child.
The second phase focuses on imagination, food supply and culinary practices. It will deal with the notions of food processing and, through practice, the children’s understanding of ways of cutting and cooking food.
The third exchange will focus on “understanding”: dealing with constraints and rules.
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With the support of the European Union’s Erasmus + programme. The above-mentioned projects are financed with the support of the European Commission. The support provided by the European Commission for the production of this publication does not constitute an endorsement of its contents, which reflects the views only of the authors; the Commission cannot be held responsible for any use which may be made of the information contained therein.
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