The Preparatory Visit-TURKEY

As I posted before, there will be a meeting for five days in Turkey between 10th and 14th January 2011 in order to share our knowledge and experiences and form the project application efficiently together. Till now, from England two schools, from Estonia and from Czech Republic one school each are going to participate the meeting. Polish and Latvian partners will get contact via telephone, email and video-conference. There we will shape the project details which will last for the next 2 years. In adition, I will find a chance to show the attractions of our town, Alanya to our guests. I will write more next days...

Yes,it is environmentally clean! - the White Flag

The White Flags has given to the holders of the right during the ceremony in the Hall of the Education Directorate in Antalya. Due to the agreement between The Ministry of National Education and The Ministry of Health in order to keep and improve the community healthy, to increase life quality, to educate healthy generations who get adequate knowledge on cleanliness and hygiene and to develop the primary schools regarding to hygiene and physical environment, totally 22 schools from Antalya including İncekum Öztaş Primary School has deserved to own the White Flag. From now on, we have more responsibility to carry the Flag since people will overlook the school's environment.

congratulations...

CHRISTMAS CARDS 2011

This year, thanks to the partner schools, my pupils from 4. to 8. grades have got pen-friends. We correspond with UK, Poland, Czech Rep., Latvia and Estonia in a way. Nowadays the students are counting the days until. This activity encourages them and gives them a chance to get an international look and notice their own talents. This is really a fruitful way to make the students' interest in the school subjects.

AŞURE (Pudding made of cereals, sugar and raisins)

As happens every year, we celebrate Aşure Day on Friday the 24th. It is in the month of Muharram according to the Muslim calendar (based on 622 A.D., the year of the Hegira). We have invited the people in the town then offered them Aşure cooked in the school garden. Everybody has tasted the delicious pudding and prayed for God's mercy. Thanks to the people working on this very willingly.

Preparatory Visit - TURKEY

2011 will be a very amazing and busy year for all of us. There will probably be a preparatory meeting in Turkey in December or January in order to finalize the ideas we would shape in our minds and drafts. We have a long time to carry out some tasks to inform the whole participants including the pupils and the parents in each school. By instructing these groups and getting their helps, we will be able to enlarge the project contents, it will be easier to direct the processes since there is a collective labor and the project will be recieved and accepted by a large number of the society which is one of the most important targets of the project. Probably, the project title will be something like "Many Hands Make Light Work" by means of the Environment. That's why one of the supporter organizations will be the municipalities in each province where the partner schools located. Music, Arts and Crafts, History, ICT, Geography, Tourism and more can be put to good use in the mentioned project. Of course it will be shaped cotiniously according to the different views of the partners. I will go on informing you here.

"MANY HANDS MAKE LIGHT WORK"

A new education year starts tomorrow and I am so excited that my international partnerships are going more than as it should from the beginning. "Many hands make light work" will be the title of our new comenius project. We are 8 countries with Turkey, England, Estonia, Latvia, Austria, Portugal, Czech Republic and Poland. We are thinking of organizing a preparatory visit before the application in order to finalize the project details and meet before applying the work. I have already made a preliminary study. Besides, I am still researching some fruitful information and advice just to success the project targets and to findthe best way for all the students to get the advantages of its.





At the school, we are establishing the European Projects committee consisting of some teachers who can speak at least a foreign language and some students from the sixth and seventh grades.

Bird Houses - the Second Stage

Finally we have built more than 100 Bird Houses and we have chosen the trees in which we would settle them. The municipality has assisted about this plan and the Mayor has assigned a fire fighters' truck to us. Students were all very happy and they were there in each stage. Thanks to my students, parents, the municipality and finally teachers... We managed it together. Now, the students started the final stage by watching bird visits and the people's response to the Bird Sanctuaries.

the BIRD HOUSE PROJECT

AAs Incekum Primary School, we have started a new project linked to our environment project. In this task, our students are creating several kinds of bird house designs. They create their own bird houses getting little support gudiance from their teachers and parents. In two weeks time, we suppose to end the first stage of the project and by March we will start the second stage in which we will look for the suitable places to settle the built houses. In deed, in our region there is a Bird Sanctuary and National Park and probably we will organize a trip to that place and settle them with our students. The main purpose in operating this project is to widen awareness for environment and to improve the students knowledge and sensitivity about the nature.

THE NOSTALGIA - LANGUAGES DAY - PAZARKÖY

It was an exciting work we did together with my students in 2006 - 2007 in my ex-school. I still remember how willingly my students worked on the task. They were all very creative in preparing materials, collecting useful things representing the countries they were responsible to introduce. I still remember how hard we worked on preparing traditional music and making films and slayts to display during the day. In deed, the photos you see here are actually enough to show their feelings about the work. I wonder where they are now. I hope they are all in peace...

Apollon Temple, Side; A Very Mystic Side

SIDE
Side is located on a peninsula penetrating into the Mediterranean. It was one of the important civilizations and has become one of Turkey’s major holiday centers.

History of the City
Side was founded by Aeolians of the Aegean region. The history of the town extends back to the 7C BC. "Side" meant "pomegranate" in the local language. Until the Roman Imperial period, pomegranate was the symbol used on the coins of Side. In the two centuries following Alexander the Great, Side was dominated usually by the Seleucids of Syria and less often by the Ptolemy of Egypt.
The peak period of the city of Side started around 2C BC when it had established and maintained good relations with the Roman Empire. This period continued until the 3C AD. The most impressive of the structures to be seen in town had been constructed during those times. Side lost its prominence during the 4C AD, however it prospered as a clerical center in the 5C AD. With earthquakes, Christian zealots and Arab raids, by the 10C AD, the site was completely abandoned, left to be buried.
The last massive settlement to Side has been in 1895 when Turkish immigrants from Crete were settled in the town. This settlement is the nucleus of the present town. But the old and the new are insolubly merged and intertwined in Side.

The Site
Entrance to the site is from among the well preserved city walls and through the main gate of the ancient city. But the gate itself has been damaged badly. After the main gate, starts the colonnaded street. The modern road follows exactly the course of the ancient avenue, although the marble columns that were once used do not exist anymore. A few broken stubs can be seen near the old Roman baths.
The colonnaded street reaches first to the agora and to the theater. It was one arm of the two avenues of the Corinthian style. At the left side of the avenue are the remains of a Byzantine Basilica.
The remains of a public bath have been restored and now serve as the Museum. This building is situated before the agora, on the right side of the street. At the Museum, Roman period statues and sarcophagi are on display. The remains of the agora can be seen on the left side. This was also the place where pirates sold slaves.
After the agora comes the theater with remains of a monumental gate and a fountain at the entrance. The fountain has been restored. The present remains of the theater date from the 2C AD. The skene of the theater is in a bad state. The theater had a seating capacity of 15,000 people and was used in the late Roman period for gladiator fights as well. The theater was used as an open air church in the 5-6C AD. Near the theater was the Temple of Dionysus of the early Roman period.
The colonnaded avenue which starts at the gate and leads up to the theater used to extend on the other side, up to the harbor. This part of the avenue is now beneath the present town of Side. Near the harbor there are two temples side by side. One of these has been dedicated to Apollo and the other to Artemis. 6 columns of the Apollo Temple have been restored and re-erected. In front of the temples was a Byzantine Basilica.