Intro to Kindergarten ...
About a week & a half ago, we went for the introduction day at Tobias' Kindergarten. He starts in Aug ;)
Tobias was very excited - he can't wait to actually go to Kindergarten. He woke early, no arguments over breakfast & dressing. Then we all (yes all 3 of us) set out to walk to Kindergarten. The kids here are expected to walk to school by themselves after the initial few months. Sometimes a mum will walk a group or the older kids will walk with the little ones or the little ones walk as a group. They teach independence early here. Everyone has to go to the Kindergarten in their village & all schools are at most a 20 or 25mins walk away (this is at kid-speed, not adult speed). This also helps to teach the older ones to care for the little ones. They prepare the kids well by having a police offier come & talk to them about traffic safety - some time within the 1st few months.
So this is how the 1.5hrs was spent.
We got there (we were the 2nd family there) - welcomed warmly by the teacher. i noticed sadly that half the garden of the kindergarten was given over to the construction happening at the neighbouring supermarket - hopefully they get it back after the construction is done.
Once most kids have arrived, they are all asked to take a seat - cute little wooden chairs, arranged in a circle. They played a cute game - a child gets to throw a large foam dice & everyone calls out the number of dots & counts along as the kid jumps over the dice that number of times.
Then the teachers introduced themselves - Frau ImHof & Frau Kasermann. Frau Imhof is the main teacher & Frau Kasermann teaches only on fridays as she also teach 1st grad in the school. Very nice ladies both.
The kids are then allocated them groups - one is SilverFish & the other is GoldenFish - Tobias is in GoldenFish group. After which they work on their cushion - the teachers have prepared huge cloth fishes in yellow for Golden group & blue for Silver group. The kids got to stamp "scales" on their own fish (using round foam pieces as stamps) It was very nice. The teachers will then let them dry over the holidays & stuff them, all ready for the kids to use come 1st day of Kindi ;)
There was another dice game & then the teachers gave out their letters for parents, their traffic safety triangle thingy which they wear when walking to school & a box of little round "scales". The kids get to pick either a black or grey fish to take home. The number of scales in the box equal to the number of days till the 1st day of school - so the kids are told that they have to paste a scale a day & when they have finished all the scales - it's time to come back to Kindi :D
At the end, we collected his "fish" timetable & other info sheets. It was nice to see that we already know some of the kids from our neighbour going to the same class as Tobias.
i'm so impressed by the efforts which the teachers have put in - it makes me feel more at ease about sending him to school :) i don't remember having such an introduction day when i went to Kindergarten - thot i must say that i loved my Kindergarten & fondly remember those days & the Rev.Mother.
Here are some pictures - i did not take pictures on the actual day cos i felt it was disturb the other kids - so these are done at home:
Fish Timetable
Grey Fish & Scales - putting scales on
syc
Tobias was very excited - he can't wait to actually go to Kindergarten. He woke early, no arguments over breakfast & dressing. Then we all (yes all 3 of us) set out to walk to Kindergarten. The kids here are expected to walk to school by themselves after the initial few months. Sometimes a mum will walk a group or the older kids will walk with the little ones or the little ones walk as a group. They teach independence early here. Everyone has to go to the Kindergarten in their village & all schools are at most a 20 or 25mins walk away (this is at kid-speed, not adult speed). This also helps to teach the older ones to care for the little ones. They prepare the kids well by having a police offier come & talk to them about traffic safety - some time within the 1st few months.
So this is how the 1.5hrs was spent.
We got there (we were the 2nd family there) - welcomed warmly by the teacher. i noticed sadly that half the garden of the kindergarten was given over to the construction happening at the neighbouring supermarket - hopefully they get it back after the construction is done.
Once most kids have arrived, they are all asked to take a seat - cute little wooden chairs, arranged in a circle. They played a cute game - a child gets to throw a large foam dice & everyone calls out the number of dots & counts along as the kid jumps over the dice that number of times.
Then the teachers introduced themselves - Frau ImHof & Frau Kasermann. Frau Imhof is the main teacher & Frau Kasermann teaches only on fridays as she also teach 1st grad in the school. Very nice ladies both.
The kids are then allocated them groups - one is SilverFish & the other is GoldenFish - Tobias is in GoldenFish group. After which they work on their cushion - the teachers have prepared huge cloth fishes in yellow for Golden group & blue for Silver group. The kids got to stamp "scales" on their own fish (using round foam pieces as stamps) It was very nice. The teachers will then let them dry over the holidays & stuff them, all ready for the kids to use come 1st day of Kindi ;)
There was another dice game & then the teachers gave out their letters for parents, their traffic safety triangle thingy which they wear when walking to school & a box of little round "scales". The kids get to pick either a black or grey fish to take home. The number of scales in the box equal to the number of days till the 1st day of school - so the kids are told that they have to paste a scale a day & when they have finished all the scales - it's time to come back to Kindi :D
At the end, we collected his "fish" timetable & other info sheets. It was nice to see that we already know some of the kids from our neighbour going to the same class as Tobias.
i'm so impressed by the efforts which the teachers have put in - it makes me feel more at ease about sending him to school :) i don't remember having such an introduction day when i went to Kindergarten - thot i must say that i loved my Kindergarten & fondly remember those days & the Rev.Mother.
Here are some pictures - i did not take pictures on the actual day cos i felt it was disturb the other kids - so these are done at home:
Fish Timetable
Grey Fish & Scales - putting scales on
syc