What is the best way to fill up the vacation time of our kids? The question is important to a number of parents who do not have the money to send their children to summer camps. Students from the New Bulgarian University have found the solution and offer interesting ideas for the leisure summer days. They entertain and teach school students for free. Workshops they organise are held in the library of the university. Kids who visit “4D in My Hands” are using interactive applications for mobile phones and tablets to create their own applications. During the "Summer Reading of Roald Dahl" they will learn more about afavourite author of children and adults, and will learn about his bizarre stories and characters. "In the Friends of Nature workshop" children will learn not only curious facts about nature, but also how to protect it. They will get acquainted with the role of people in nature preservation and will learn about the importance of separate waste collection.

What does it mean to organise a workshop for children and stand in front of their curious eyes? Here is more from Mihaela Kovacheva, a student of English Studies at the New Bulgarian University.

"My main goal is teaching English. The workshop helps me relax in front of the children and talk to them freely. So, the workshop is actually quite useful for me, too. At the beginning I was afraid that they will not listen to us and that we may not be able to grab their attention. But, we managed to provoke them and to attract their interest. The idea of ​​our workshop is to write a fairy tale for 5 minutes. We ask children questions about their characters. Thus, using their answers we create a fairy tale. That is how we help in developing their communication skills and their imagination. We aim at making them think."

More about children's interest in the project from Stephanie Aldimirova, who together with Mihaela leads the "Fairy Tale for 5 Minutes” workshop. She also studies at the New Bulgarian University and is a student in acting.

"Together with Mihaela we had an internship in the library. In the second semester we had the opportunity to participate in workshops. The project is an initiative of ​​the university library. Workshops are organised during school holidays so children can have something useful to do. Just the very atmosphere of the library is good for them and the workshops are original and attractive. Most of the children have never been inside a university building, so it is interesting for them.”

At the end of the day everyone leaves smiling and happy. Everyone learned something new about the world and is impatient to come back.

English version: Alexander Markov