Pre-KG 2025/ 26 Blog 29 Excursion with the family to Animal Kingdom

 Pre-KG 2025/ 26 Blog 29

Excursion with the family to Animal Kingdom 

This excursion has been planned for a long time and the children were so much looking forward to taking their family along, hence connecting our previous unit of " Animals and Food" to the current one of "Body and Family". 

The Pre-Kindergarten children had done a lot of research about what different animals eat and as Animal Kingdom gives opportunities to the children to feed animals or watch them being fed, this park is a fitting destination.

We started the preparation for the trip by looking at the map of Animal Kingdom and the children searched for some familiar animals and tried to find the matching animals from our vast array of animal figurines.

 It was fascinating to see how interested the children were in the maps and how well they spotted even the smallest images. 

The map gave the chance for a lot of questions as some animals were unknown to the children and in the course they learnt some new vocabulary. Do you know what a sloth is or a shoebill? Please check it out !

A trip preparation also needs good self-management skills as the children need to navigate safely around different areas and sit on assigned spots. So the Pre-Kindergarten children went on a walk to the nearby tulip field and river where they took care not to walk on the flowers and stayed in a proper distance to the water. Well done and good listening, Pre-Kindergarten children.

The children also did a wonderful job following the safety instructions during the Earthquake plus Tsunami drill this Thursday and made it orderly to the assembly point at the Fashion Museum. Bravo !

On Friday then, the class hopped on the school bus with some of their mothers joining and off we went to Animal Kingdom.

This park evolved from the original conception as a bird park and has added a variety of other animals, from familiar cats, dogs and rabbits to capybaras, penguins, to a shoebill and larger land animals like a bear and lion. There are different opinions about the capture of big species and not everyone feels comfortable seeing them held in small spaces. 

Children tend to get very excited about seeing especially big animals and it is always at the parents discretion teaching them about animals in the wild. We had wonderful sessions in Pre-Kindergarten about animals living in nature in a variety of habitats and hope to have instilled a love for nature and wildlife in our children.

Thus said, there was much excitement throughout the day and the children and parents were in awe of the bird show, with eagles and the beautiful and colourful parrots flying. The parrots took long flights high into the sky and came back to their handlers, in time for lunch.

Our little group also had a delicious lunch with sandwiches and homemade onigiri and a nice time chatting.

The class then visited the outside area, watched otters and penguins swim, squirrel in the trees and capybaras and ant eaters walk around looking for food. The inside areas provided glimpses into the Amazon and jungle animals, night creatures, busy monkeys and domestic animals. The children got to feed some animals including ducks and pet the rabbits.

There is so much to explore and do at the park (and a very enticing shop and restaurant), you easily can spend a whole day there, especially if you bring a stroller for your child to take a quick nap in between. We left at 2.15pm (14.15) and the school bus and our bus driver, Mr.Fujita waited right at the exit to take the families with some very happy Pre-Kindergarten children back to school. Everyone had such a wonderful, enriching time and after all the excitement, all the children slept on the bus.

Thank you again to the parents who could join us and to the others who needed to be absent for various reasons, kindly visit this park at your leisure as your child will surely love it.

Kobe Animal Kingdom

Wishing you many adventures and discoveries with your family !

With kind regards, mit freundlichen Grüßen, 

Anita Ursula Mönch

DSKI Pre-Kindergarten homeroom teacher 

Playgroup / EY GFL & Deutsch      

German Saturday School homeroom teacher

Pre-KG 2025/ 26 Blog 28 Who belongs to my family ?

 Pre-KG 2025/ 26 Blog 28

Who belongs to my family ?

With the start of our new unit called "Body and Family", the Pre-Kindergarten children dove right into the topic of who belongs to their family.

Family (from Latin: familia) is actually a core social concept and institution rather than a purely biological fact. Wikipedia identifies it as a group of people related either by consanguinity or affinity which forms the basis for social order.

So with our Pre-Kindergarten children talking often about their mommy, daddy, brother, sister and grandparents as well as their cats, one would think that the concept of family comes to them quite easily.

Well, we started the journey by talking to the children about their family and some could name some family members, but some children found it difficult, so we set up different activities and stations for them to express themselves. 

First we revisited the photos the parents had sent of their children eating and asked what they and their different family members like to eat. The children then matched food and fruit to their own picture and added some carton cut-outs of family members and their favourite food.

This activity was a good pre-assessment to monitor if the children knew how many family members were in their family, but it showed that usually just one or two family members were indicated. The children did a fantastic job though feeding their chosen family members which showed great care !

The children then used only the carton cut-outs of their family members and almost everyone was able to find their family members and even count them ! Bravo !

Lego are always a great tool for expression, so the Pre-Kindergarten children became very creative putting their family together (including pets), they built houses and habitats for them and one child even sent his family on a plane trip!

Our specialist teachers, Ms.Azusa for music and Mr.Brabant for P.E. also helped the children learning more about their current subject by integrating songs like "Daddy Finger" or a very  active catch game called "Mommy got a letter and she dropped it..." (based on the duck, duck, goose game) and the children had a lot of fun with these additional activities.

Playdough is very popular with our Pre-kindergarten children, so they tried to make some family members with that, but this task proved quite challenging. Some of our children are still learning to roll balls which could be heads and bodies or make snakes (for arms and legs), but they are progressing well and one of our girls created a cute Minnie Mouse as a family member!

Additionally the children made a lot of playdough food - we really have a class that loves food, so let's cook again soon.

Everyone also loves books, so throughout the last two weeks we read a lot of books with the Pre-Kindergarten children and we were really amazed by their interest and attention span. We started with easy books just about mommy, daddy and the baby and then ventured into more complex stories about Dora, the Explorer and her family and The little Critters. 

These books show a variety of scenes and stories when growing up and in daily family life and the Pre-Kindergarten children were not only good listeners, but started to get active with pointing and even questions. It shows again the great value of books and reading where you can give feedback and interact with your child.

The school also celebrated Easter and the children made beautiful Easter Bunny baskets with materials donated by our kind DSKI PTA and later in the day went for a stroll in the sunshine under the beautiful Sakura trees which were in full bloom.

With the song "Daddy finger" being so popular (and important for motor skills), I introduced a digital version as well. I am known for being very reluctant about screen time, but this short song is a clever version that adds what actually each family member can do with their fingers.

Finger Family

So please enjoy it and feel free to add your own ideas, I am sure your child will love it.

Next week we will review some of our animals and have a look at the bus and the map in preparation for our trip to Animal Kingdom with the families which I am very much looking forward to !

Wishing you a lovely spring weekend and some more Sakura blossoms along the way !

With kind regards, mit freundlichen Grüßen, 

Anita Ursula Mönch

DSKI Pre-Kindergarten homeroom teacher 

Playgroup / EY GFL & Deutsch      

German Saturday School homeroom teacher