"Chestita Baba Marta !"

In these days, a week ago, all main streets of towns are full of Martenicas. If you don’t want to make martenicas for friends by yourself, you can buy them which is difficult  because every martenica is beautiful.

We give Martenicas as a present to relatives and friends to wish health and happiness. All Bulgarian people put them on their clothes but some people put them around their wrists. Everybody gives Martenicas as presents and receives many Martenicas too. People greet one another saying - "Chestita Baba Marta" , that means "Happy Grandmother Marta and Marta is also the name of the month of March.

How old is this tradition ? Nobody kbnows because we have old legends about Martenicas since Bulgaria became a country, about the year 681.

People don't think about that now - they think about spring that is coming, the cold winter that is going away and the flowers that are blooming.

We keep our Martenicas until we see the first stork or first swallow, then we can take off our Martenicas and hang them on a blossom tree or put them under a rock.

- a message from our Bulgarian partners

Sveiki ! Salud deoc'h ! Hallo!  Z drasti !

Here are a few graphs that the pupils from Brittany have made with the results of the questionnaire.  I hope to receieve all of your results soon so that we can compare our different eating habits. There are 27 pupils in the class and they all sleep at school in  the dormitories on Mondays and Thursday nights. As you can see, they cannot buy sweets and sodas at school  at school.  Most of the pupils live in the country. Most of them have yoghurt for dessert. Parents influence them the most in their eating habits.  Very few of them eat fast food !

Do you think they eat a balanced diet? Look at the pie chart "You Eat the Most" and find out !  Dominig, their math teacher worked on these charts and graphs during math lessons in the computer room. Dominig is coming to Lithuania in April.

This is a picture of the pupils working on the Comenius project in Plijidi (Brittany, France).

 Here is the questionnaire we developed to analyse the different eating habits we might find in our schools. The pupils will then exchange their results so that we can compare and discuss the differences in science class. 

They will then make charts and graphs in math class to support their findings.

Plijidi says   " Demat deoc'h eus Breizh ! Yec'hed mat d'an holl !"

That means : Hello  from Brittany !  Good health to all !

Pupils questionnaire :


1) What type of lunch do you have at school ?

a. Bring sandwiches from home
b. Hot lunch in school cantine
c. Don’t eat lunch
d. Other

2) List the food groups from 1 to 5, 1 being the one you eat most and 5 the least :

___ Meat , Fish and Eggs, Peas, Beans
___ Vegetables and Fruit
___ Milk and Cheese and Yogurt
___ Bread and Cereals, Pasta , Potatoes
___ Fats and sugar (butter, oil, cakes, biscuits, sweets…)


3) Do you ever skip meals ?
a. Never
b. Sometimes
c. Often

4) At school I can buy these when I want :
a. Sweets and chocolate
b. Fruit
c. Other snacks
d. Nothing
e. Soda

5) What do you usually have for breakfast ?
a. Nothing
b. Cereal and milk
c. Bread and jam and a drink
d. Eggs and bacon and a drink
e. Other


6) Do you usually eat a dessert at the end of a meal ? Which one ?
a. Cake
b. Yogurt
c. Cheese
d. Fruit

7) Do you think you are :

a. Too fat
b. Much too fat
c. Too thin
d. Much too thin
e. Normal weight

8) What influences the way you eat ? List 1 to 5, 1 is most important and 5 is least important
___What my parents buy and prepare
___What my friends eat
___What is served at school
___What is well-balanced
___What is quick


9) Are you a girl or a boy ?
a. Girl
b. Boy

10) How old are you ? _________

11) What country are you from ?
a. Brittany, France
b. Lithuania
c. Bulgaria
d. Holland

12) Do you live :
a. In the country
b. In the city

This year we've got two joint products to be completed at the end of the school year. One of them is a healthy recipe cookbook... maybe an ebook! And the other is a seven family card game based on the different languages in our schools. The pupils will be designing the pictures to be put on the cards and here are some examples of the work being done in Bulgaria. The Bulgarian school is a primary school and the other schools in the project are primary plus secondary or just secondary schools.

Here are some more pictures of our first Comenius project on-site visit.

Wellant college gave us a warm welcome !

As a technical school, there were a great diversity of different subjects that the pupils can study like animal husbandry, cooking, horticulture, art, flower design, gardening,  and other basic subjects like maths and language arts etc.

In November all our colleagues arrived in Wellant College to inaugurate our project. The Bulgarians and Lithuanians came by plane and the Bretons by train. 

We had time to work on the project schedule and to  visite the region around Ottoland. We visited the school, met some teachers and the principal, and we met the pupils who will be coming to Trakai in Lithuania. Some of them interviewed us !

Welcome to A Healthy Lifestyle is Fun !

This blog is picture-window into a four school partnership with funding from the Comenius office of the European Union. The theme of our partnership is health , and based on our project activities we hope make our pupils aware of good and bad health habits and participate in creating a positive image of themselves.

There are four schools concerned with this project:

Skolaj Diwan Bro-Dreger  from Brittany, France

Wellant College in Holland

Traku R. Senuju Traku Pagrindine Mokyla in Lithuania

Sv. Paisily Hilendarski in Bulgaria

Over the next two years we will work on different themes like eating habits and sports, family life and hobbies and pass-times. We will also meet together four times traveling to our respective schools and working on the project together. 

We hope  to have our pupils learn new things about themselves and about others, to learn new European languages, to study the history and geography of our partner countries, to develop computer skills, and to perfect their skills in English, all while having fun in school !