MY HAPPINESS RECIPE

Ingredients:

• a snowy day

• a lot of snow

• my new skis

• a cottage

• a fireplace

• a hot chocolate

• my family

Instructions:

Shake well and enjoy the magical moment!

Ema Lenai Zajc

Ingredients:

• a sunny day

• my favourite video games

• a can of good lemonade

• my family

Instructions: Mix it. Enjoy the day!

Franky Ben Bojc

Ingredients:

• a lot of chocolate cookies

• all my cousins, brothers and sisters

• X-box CD game: Lego Jurassic word

• twelve X-box controllers for us

Instructions: Turn on the game and join in the game while we eat chocolate cookies.

Jurij Omejc

Ingredients:

• a good friend

• some balls

• a quiet beach

• lemonade

• a radio

• lots of sand and a volleyball net

• French fries

• a hamburger

Instructions: Turn on the radio. Add ketchup to French fries. Give five to a friend and start enjoying!

Katarina Kim Kilar

Froggy 30 | 49

Ingredients:

• A sunny day

• a quiet beach

• a can of lemonade,

• my favorite CDs

• some good friends

• an exciting book

• my new surfboard

Instructions: Mix well. Enjoy your day!

Žiga Kostanjšek

Ingredients:

• a sunny day

• hot sun

• a quiet beach

• warm sea

• happy friends

Instructions: Mix everything together and add some magic happiness sugar.

Lovro Tomažin

Ingredients:

• my chinchilla

• my bestie / best friend

• a snowy day

• chips for my best friend

• cocoa

• sandwiches

• snow balls

• sharing an igloo

• playing with my chinchilla

• laughing

• a snowman

Instructions:

Mix everything well and have fun and make a snowman. Be funny, crazy and happy for this perfect day!

Ingredients:

• a snowy day

• gloves

• a cap

• an overall

• hot chocolate (with marshmallows in it)

• snowmobiles

• some friends

• a big warm jacket

Instructions: Dress up. Invite your friends. Go get snow mobiles. Make a hot chocolate.

ENJOY YOUR SNOWY DAY!!

Paola Josić

Ingredients:

• no more corona

• home-made cookies

• chocolate milk

• my friends

• sunshine

• video games

• good grades

Instructions: Mix it well and add Christmas presents.

Lan Cener

Distance education is something new for all of us. It took me by surprise. I liked it. It was a new way of studying. I got bored after a while. Sitting in front of a computer all day is hard. I was glad I had my twin brother with me so I didn’t have to study alone.

For most children face-to-face learning is easier than distance education but I found distance learning easier. I was able to decide which subject I wanted to do first and which last. In face-toface learning you have to do what you are told. You have to do homework and sit in the classroom for seven hours. I guess you are able to see your friends more but you can’t really talk. You get a better explanation at school but I am used to studying from books.

I would love to go to school in the morning and do my homework on the computer. I’d like to have distance education when I get ill. I like to know what my classmates are doing when I’m not around, because I don’t like to be left behind.

Lina Jager, 9a

We were online for quite some time. This year's quarantine was genuinely better because of the organization. Last year teachers would send mail with instructions to our parents and then they would have to send it to us. I think it was just a burden to our parents. In the school year 2020/2021 we ere using Teams. The difference was noticeable. Not only was it well organized, but the teachers were more reachable, so if you had a problem, they replied sooner. Online school with Teams was better, but it was nothing compared to face-to-face school. The only pro I can think of (for online school) was organizing your own time (which usually meant more sleeping). The problem of quarantine is seeing your friends only on Zoom, which is not as fun as seeing them in person. I think face-to-face learning is better, because even if teachers are active on Microsoft Teams it is easier to ask them something in person. The pro is also seeing your friends. Breaks are so much cooler in face-to-face school. But because everything has a con, I woke up very tired this morning. So, in face-to-face school I get to sleep a bit less.

I think Slovenian government isn’t doing a good job. They could present a better system instead of just putting us in school and then back home. Foe instance, I really like the programme C or whatever it is called, so we would be at home one week and in school the other. But as I am writing, I am only a student, so I don’t know everything behind every programme. In general, I think we are doing pretty well in fighting Covid-19 and I hope it stays this way.

Neža Lesjak, 9c

When we first heard that we were going into a lockdown, we were excited. We thought that we were getting a two-week vacation, but what happened in the end was quite the opposite. What started as a two-week quarantine turned into four months of online school. I would say that I stayed in contact with my friends quite a lot. We would go on video chat whenever we could, help each other with school work and sometimes go on socially distanced walks. In my opinion, I think online school was easier than face-to-face, but I know that some of my friends don’t feel the same way. I liked the fact that we could manage our own time and be more independent. But in a different way it just wasn’t the same quality as face-to-face school. I know that all the teachers tried very hard to make online school as good as in person, but I just don’t think it can be achieved. At least in my experience I spent less time on homework and school work in general, which I don’t know if it’s a good or a bad thing. Overall, I wouldn’t say it was a horrible experience, there were some good times, but I wouldn’t do it again in a million years. However, I think it has offered us a new view on the internet. I hope that in the future we will work more with our phones and computers. We could do research or even solve quizzes on them.

Ira Verbinc, 9a

So, in Slovenia the first lockdown started on March 15th 2020. Everything stopped, as well as schools. We started online school. At first it was difficult because we didn’t know what to expect, but then it was getting better. I missed my friends and I also missed how my teachers explained some things to me. We were on our own and it was hard to understand a lot of the programme. Then in September 2020 we were in school till the end of October and the government said we were again starting online school. We were at home for four months and we didn’t get a lot of grades, just a few. And I was working hard, but not everyone did. When we came back to school, they had big problems. I would say the good side of online school is that you can pan your day out how you want it and that you can wake up a little bit later. But the bad side is that you miss teachers’ explanations. In three days we’re starting online school again and I’m not looking forward to it.

Tea Kerpan, 9a

The overall experience of a distant education has been quite good. All the teachers worked hard to make things as easy as possible for us. But because we are home alone while doing all the school work, it is sometimes hard to concentrate and it leads to certain things taking us more time to finish. I found learning from school very interesting, because I had never thought something like that would happen to us.

It is not hard to compare classroom and distance education. They are very different and of course both of them have advantages and disadvantages. For me, the best thing about distance education is less stress. We ca schedule our day how we please and usually we don’t have a strict time limit, we just have to have it done at the end of the day. In normal school, it is of course very different. But at home, we don’t have that excitement to learn. At school, most things are presented better and that’s how it triggers our interest. We also remember things better while in the classroom, because at home we are usually very bored and just want to get things done as quickly as possible. The most relevant for me is company. At home I sometimes feel lonely because I’m alone in my room. In the classroom, it is obviously very different and you can almost never get bored.

I think that distance education is a very good option in cases like COVID-19 lockdown. It makes it possible for us to still learn and not just pause our lives until the virus is gone. But in the normal circumstances, I think I prefer learning in the classroom. It is much more fun and exciting. In the future, I think that distance education could be very useful. I wouldn’t mind learning from home again.

Zoja Nina Gafarafol, 9b

I would say that my experience of learning during the COVID-19 lockdown was pretty rough, since I struggled with motivating myself to work and attend my meetings. I was constantly behind with my work, which led to me being stressed all the time. The only thing I liked about online school was the fact that I could sleep till the last minute before class and maybe listen to music during classes even though it wasn’t allowed. What I really hated was that my room became my working space and was no longer a room in which I could relax and not think about school.

I think in the future online school will still play a pretty big role in the Slovenian education and it will become normal to use Teams for example in our everyday lives.

Eva Turković, 9a

During the first wave it was awful. It might have been the worst time of my life. I was worried, I didn’t socialize (I mean because I couldn’t). And a big part of the problem was distance learning. I lost the will, so I was doing less and less school work. But that resulted in even more worries. When we went back to school, I was so happy and eventually saw that I wasn’t the only one that didn’t work and was unhappy. After the holidays (still in school live) I felt really bad and was even kind of happy to go back home. This time it was better, because there were videoconferences. But eventually my will started to vanish (I mean, not that it was not expected). So, I was really happy to go back live, but now we are going back home… Ugh!

Anyway, I strongly prefer in person educating. I mean, we have schools (the buildings) for a reason, right? Even in college many people don’t have the level of self-control to work like we were meant to. What about primary school then? Also, one big thing I would like to mention: having a camera turned on during meetings is really annoying, because you never know if someone is looking at you. I would definitely recommend using the Pomodoro technique. Otherwise, I just hope this will never repeat itself again.

Brin Lengar, 9c

We all realized something when we were at home. Everyone needs friends, even though some people don’t think they do. I think that being alone or maybe not alone, just lonely, was the biggest disadvantage. As well aa not having teachers explain some new things you might be interested in. For me, I know that being just with my family, even though I love them, sometimes felt lonely. Another thing that was hard for me was organizing and motivating myself to do school work. It was really overwhelming at times, but after you figured out what works for you, you managed to pull yourself together and do some work. I’m not really a planned person who knows what or how they will do or spend the next week. I think if I knew how much easier it would be to plan some things, I would do it the same second. So, looking back, I think planning things or events in you day really helped you stay sane.

After a few weeks, things started piling up and everything seemed like a mess. I think that as a person, I really grew these few months, because you were responsible for everything that you did. I think it was really important for the teachers to see how much we were able to learn by ourselves. There were many advantages, even though they weren’t that obvious. You could sleep longer, eat whenever you were hungry and, of course, you were at home, which I think is a very comfortable place for everyone. Because of that comfort it was easier to relax and concentrate on school work I think it also took me a lot less time to do exercises and other school work teachers gave us than in school.

So, I think in the future school could shorten the actual time you spend in school, because you could do things faster in silence and in your comfort zone at home. But as many people say, we have to step out of our comfort zone and do some things that aren’t expected from us, so I think face-to-face school teaches us so much more for real life, than just learning facts. And I think there’s a very thin line between the main thing you learn in school and out of school, because I think school is more about learning how to be a part of society and how to communicate with people outside your family.

Sara Globokar, 9a

This year was much more different from a normal school year and for students and teachers, this was a whole new experience. I actually enjoyed this way of learning. I’m the kind of person who loves doing things on their own and this new situation put all of us in the position where you can be completely on your own. This new kind of learning also takes a lot of concentration and you really need to be focused on your work because at home there are tones of distractions and it’s pretty hard to stay focused at this point.

So, as I already mentioned, I prefer online school but face-to-face school still has its advantages, you can hang out with your friends and there are teachers who can explain things you don’t completely understand.

I think the perfect combination would be something in between, so I think it would be best if we went to school for one week and then another week we were in online school. The perfect combination.

April Kotnik, 9c

Hello everyone!

As you know, we’ve been in quarantine for months now. In my opinion it was great at first because everyone was excited about working from home, but now after a few months, it is so boring. I’m in school at the moment and I’m having fun with my friends. But it is a little bit strange because I’m actually sitting in a real classroom full of school mates, instead of in my empty room. Even though online school was boring I can say that getting marks was so much easier than in school, and I was able to eat anytime I wanted. I also watched Netflix and TV more, because I was always at home. But here in school I can talk to my friends during breaks and if I don’t understand something, it’s easier for the teachers to explain it to me. I think that if we had been in school all this time we were in quarantine, we would have actually learnt more than we did online. I liked online school, but I prefer being in real school. It’s harder, but it’s more fun.

Anja Oven, 9d

My learning experience during the COVID-19 lockdown is interesting. My marks improved and I studied a lot better because I had more time. In my opinion the advantages were that you had more time, you didn’t have to wake up at 6 am and be in a hurry or be late. You could organize your time and working on the computer is way more interesting. I’ve learnt a lot of new things. The disadvantages are that aren’t in the classroom and you don’t have your school mates there and the teacher isn’t there. It was harder to understand the classes if you didn’t listen to the teacher explaining it. I think it would be hard to combine both ways of learning and in the future, they will have to decide what education would be like. Thanks to technology and computers we will be able to adapt and I think it is good for children to learn how to work with computers. Social distancing is a problem with this type of education, but it’s about saving human lives and I think we must all remember that.

Silvija Rojc, 9a

I think that the lockdown affected a lot of people’s lives and learning abilities. I’d say that I personally struggled with learning and always being up to date with my assignments. I was mostly lazier since there wasn’t anyone really pushing me as much since they were only on my screen and I didn’t come face-to-face with them. I also became pretty inactive since I was sitting for most of my day. The only exercises I did were online trainings which I had three times a week, and also during the weekends I went running in the morning. But that still wasn’t enough. With every bad thing of course comes good. I could choose when and what I wanted for breakfast. I was always at the joy of my home and my room. I was also able to wake up right as the class started. But over-all I learnt much less during the lockdown. I generally prefer being in school surrounded by friends and teachers. I feel much better when I’m social and now I also have a chance to train five times a week and talk to my friends in person. I think for the future we shouldn’t do more online classes since you just have more work, learn and socialize less and also feel more stressed out and lonely.

Anej Mlakar, 9d