Pre-KG 2025/ 26 Blog 25 O-Hinasama and celebration food

 Pre-KG 2025/ 26 Blog 25

O-Hinasama and celebration food

This Monday was the day before O-Hinasama Matsuri, a traditional Japanese festival that is held every year on 3rd of March.

The O-Hinasama festival (also called girls or dolls festival in English) dates back to the Heian period when girls were given a set of dolls, the O-Hinasama, representing the emperor and empress and their court. Families pray for their daughters’ health and happiness, hoping that their daughters also will become kind, strong and courteous.

Ureshii Hinamatsuri

Many Japanese families display an elaborate set of dolls often handed down from generations or just the main two dolls representing the Emperor and Empress.

 It is one of my and my daughter's favourite festivals and as I would like the Pre-Kindergarten and DSKI community to know about it, it has become a tradition for the Pre-Kindergarten class to set up the two dolls the school owns at the entrance for everyone to admire.

Animated O-Hinasama Song

After setting up a beautiful display in the hallway, the Pre-Kindergarten children sang the traditional song and then made their own set of dolls with paper plates and beautiful origami paper as kimono.They chose the pattern to their liking, drew some charming faces and put their finished dolls on display.

The next day the children worked on their colouring skills and proudly showed their finished drawings in front of their handmade dolls! Great job, everyone!

After singing to the song again, the Pre-Kindergarten children wanted to dress and feed the baby dolls in the classroom which really showed their caring side.

The school lunch held a nice surprise as it was based on the chirashi-sushi which is traditionally enjoyed on O-Hinasama Day.

At the end of the day everyone proudly took home their lovely crafts and a small present from Ms.Anita in form of a Sakura flower bookmark.

Food is not only one of the current unit subjects, but really cherished by the Pre-Kindergarten children, so the next morning they invited some friends from K1 to join a little bento making party in our play kitchen. It was heartwarming to see how well the children played together and how much joy they showed !

Ms.Azusa in her music lesson continued the theme with a Japanese song called adaptly " The Bento song" and again the children had so much fun.

As the unit combines "Animals and Food" and the Pre-Kindergarten children have learnt so much in recent weeks, we gave them a small assignment in form of a matching task. We put three animals on the table and ask the children to allocate the correct food items. 

They mastered this perfectly and their actions were accompanied by full sentences in English...lion eats meat, elephant eats water melon and bananas, horse eats grass and carrots ! The children have advanced in their language and become very knowledgeable !

Later in the day we collaborated with K1 and K2 and visited the Sheraton Hotel together to view their stunning full set of O-Hinasama doll made by amazing craftsmen. It was my pleasure explaining the different dolls and ornaments to the attentive children and teachers.

On Friday we looked at the pictures the parents have kindly sent me and talked about what the children are eating. The Pre-Kindergarten children were very excited to see themselves on the photos and again were able to talk about the food and match items correctly. Great progress, everyone !

As the Pre-Kindergarten children could not have sweets for the O-Hinasama festival, but they enjoy healthy fruits, we ended the week with another "cooking" activity. The children cut mango into smaller pieces to create a sunflower around grape "seeds". Not only did they cut well, but the fruit sunflower looked very appealing and tasted even more delicious.

This was a nice treat for a very busy week which also featured many visitors to the school, a 3D printer seminar for the teachers (STEM) and two sports matches for our upper Primary on Friday ! Both, the DSKI basketball team and the DSKI soccer team won their matches and we were so proud of them. Some of these children have attended Pre-Kindergarten and it was wonderful to see them grow up into kind, fair and confident players.

We also have many siblings across all grades and it makes me very happy that we can all collaborate and learn from each other ! Next week is the K2 Assembly which I am also much looking forward to.

Enjoy the plum blossoms this weekend !

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 24 The Call of Africa

 Pre-KG 2025/ 26 Blog 24

The Call of Africa

There probably is a longing in all of us to go to Africa some day. Whether it is because of its deep history as the cradle of humankind and vibrant cultures with over 2000 languages, the image of the sun setting on the vastness of the land or its iconic wildlife which every child knows about - we are all fascinated by Africa. 

The Pre-Kindergarten children love elephants as much as I do (my favourite animal beside dolphins) so after looking into Farm, Hawaiian and Arctic animals, this week they learnt more about this gentle giant, the rest of South Africa's big five and many more interesting animals. And we had the great luck to have a fantastic guest speaker in class on Friday, so stay tuned until the end of the blog !

On Monday, the children revisited our book with maps (Riesenatlas) to find Africa and they also viewed a map of the country surrounded by images of its famous wildlife. 

Ms.Nini had organized a multitude of activities for the children to learn more about African animals: First she showed pictures with some of the animals’ features and the children much enjoyed the quiz and the matching activity.

Then she provided cut outs of the shadows and the Pre-Kindergarten children proved that they had become very proficient at recognizing shapes in their first unit. Bravo !

Next was a wonderful shadow play with our animal figurines. The children watched in awe each time a new shadow appeared and learnt that the size changes with the distance from the light source into bigger and smaller. Another exciting STEM discovery! Thank you, Ms.Nini, for these fabulous ideas ! 

Cutting is another skill where the Pre-Kindergarten children are getting better at and the beloved elephant was soon created using eye-hand coordination and glue. Now the elephants live on our classroom display board and are waiting for food ! 

Our clever children will soon make some paper fruits for them and some tall trees for the giraffes. Oh yes, let’s not forget the giraffes, which were also cut out after putting dots as their fur patterns. It was interesting to see that the children chose the colours of their dots very individually showing their imagination and creativity !

Having learnt the names and shapes of various African animals, the children then looked at their different feet or paws. Africa features a wide range of terrain with grassy land, muddy areas and sand. What kind of trail would an elephant leave in mud ? Can we still see a giraffe's hoof print (Spoor in Afrikaans and Spur in German) in sand after a while ?

The Pre-Kindergarten children took these questions and tested different animal figurines in thick mud aka playdough and sand and found out that a track disappears easily in sandy terrain when wiped out by hands (or the wind in nature). Being true inquirers they also discovered different sizes of tracks made by big or small versions of the same animals. Great discoveries and a lot learnt!

For Friday afternoon, we had invited Ms.Schelin , the K2 homeroom teacher as a guest speaker as she is very knowledgeable about Africa and its wildlife, because she was born there and has seen the animals with her own eyes!

Ms.Schelin brought with her a multitude of beautiful photos which she had taken and also amazing stories !

The Pre-Kindergarten children and teachers listened enthralled, were fascinated by the photos and learnt about so many new species who call Africa their home. Soon the children interacted and showed Ms.Schelin the corresponding animal figurines and puppets. The teachers imagined the adventure of camping out in the savanna, sitting by the fire and listening to the roar of wild lions.

Please Ms.Schelin, take us there and in the meanwhile, thank you so very much for your educating and entertaining photo presentation and for sharing anecdotes of your life in Africa. We were grateful and honoured to have you with us ! Dankie, Ashley !

We still have all the fabulous photos in our classroom for you to see and for all of us, who dream about Africa, I would like to end this blog with a poem:

The Call of Africa by C.Emily Dibb

Wishing you a roaring weekend,

With warm regards, mit freundlichen Grüßen, 

Anita Ursula Mönch

DSKI Pre-Kindergarten homeroom teacher 

Playgroup / EY GFL & Deutsch      

German Saturday School homeroom teacher