100 Year Anniversary of the Indepence of Finland

The meeting in Finland took place from the 4th December to 8th December, 2017. In this week there was held the 100th of Finland, Independence Day which was the celebration of Finland’s independence from Russia in 1917. Its date was 6 December but the whole week was full of the spirit of celebrating. Streets were decorated in blue and white colours, in families there were lit two candles and placed in their windows in the evening. Originally, this was a sign to indicate that the house is ready to host and give shelter to jagers, who were on their way to Germany to train to be able to fight for the freedom of Finland.
During the meeting, we attended the festivities and joined the local community celebrating the 100 years of independence. Participants gave short presentations of similar celebrations of their own countries and introduced the most important dates of their history as well as the ways of celebration. They took photos and video recordings and learnt how to edit them. Students were shown how to use GoogleMyMaps, and how to share their pictures, recordings and presentations on this site. 
On the 4th December Hermanni School was introduced to the participants and Finnish Food culture at the Home Economics class. Teachers and students got familiar with their hosts. Presentations on the participating schools and state or national days were presented.
On the 5th December there was a celebration of the 100th anniversary of Finland’s independence at school – the flag was raised, the flame of freedom was visited. Independence Day Gala and Celebration was held in the school hall. Students had to wear festive clothes. There was a common dinner at school.
On the 6th of December Finns had their Independence Day and celebrated 100th anniversary of their country. On that day students stayed with their families and experienced how it is celebrated at homes. Teachers visited Turku, the former capital of Finland and experienced celebrating Independence Day at one of the teacher’s home with savouries enjoying the Reception of President on TV.
On the 7th December students had lessons and workshops (Music, Crafts, Geography, English, Home Economics etc). Students also started to create presentations about what they learned about their stay (climate and weather, school day, family life, nature etc); and using Powerpoint students made a visual summary of these topics. On the 8th December there were some morning words by English and Estonian students on school radio, then lessons and in the afternoon students went to the local youth centre Steissi and then we had a field trip to Kirjakkala „Ironworks village”.