Pre-KG 2025/ 26 Blog 2 Winter Animals and Winter Soup

 Pre-KG 2025/ 26 Blog 2

Winter Animals and Winter Soup

In our current unit I am taking the Pre-Kindergarten children around the world, albeit just figuratively.

After our research last week into the fauna and culture of tropical Hawaii, this week we went to explore the animals in some colder regions and looked at their eating habits.

First we referred again to our many books to see what kind of animals actually live in ice and snow, some permanently, some just during the cold winter.

The children came up with polar bears and pinguins, but then we found a good image that showed that also wolves, deer, reindeers, rabbits and huskies inhabit cold regions and even orcas live in icy water.

We printed the image and the children made another diorama which soon was the home for a multitude of winter animals.

My daughter Hanna had visited Finland this winter, so I also showed the children a photo of her with a husky.

We then watched a lively song in German of a little boy whose best friend is a pinguin.

Pi–Pa–Pinguin

As some of our Pre-Kindergarten friends had missed the making of the first diorama last week and the sea life related art, they added their colourful versions and showed really nice cutting and gluing skills. Beautiful collages, everyone !

Inspired by the icy scenes of the winter world, the children started to make icebergs and winter scenes with our foam blocks and Lego which became more and more elaborate over the week. Animals were added and Elsa and her sister Anna found a home, too.

Back to the food in these winter worlds and to the question what do the animals there actually eat as there is only snow and ice to see.

We were astonished that the children remembered that bears eat fish (BBC footage two blogs ago) and we told them that seals and penguins eat fish, too.

The polar bear was then used as a model to make our own version out of paper plates and the children had a lot of fun crafting them. They especially enjoyed giving their own bear a unique facial expression.

To feed those bears, some of our Pre-Kindergarten children learnt to fold a fish out of Origami paper which was not easy, but they showed persistance and amazing folding skills. Now our polar bears finally had some food.

Folding papers is a sensual experience which children enjoy and need to develop. So after they had touched the snow in a previous week and knew that it is cold as ice, we planned an additional activity to let them experience how cold ice actually is and that it melts through warmth and friction. Yes, our little explorers are getting ready for STEM week as science is a part of it.

We took out the drawing mat and provided the children with icecubes and gloves. Some wanted to touch the ice without the gloves and soon found out that at least they protect us a little from the cold. With wonder the Pre-Kindergarten children discovered that ice is frozen water and does really melt when in contact with warmth. 

They made some interesting ice cube doodles and watched the icecubes melting. Great STEM discovery!

Not only animals, but people need to eat and there is nothing better than a hearty soup in winter. 

The Pre-Kindergarten children have become quite adapt at cutting through previous activities like cutting our toy food and the real fruit for the fruit salad with K1, so they were very excited about another cooking session. 

They marched to the STEM room clad in aprons and holding the proper cutlery utensils and then cut cauliflower, carrots, broccoli and sausages into small pieces while Ms.Kotomi was boiling the noodles in the kitchen. 

When done, she showed them to the children who then mixed the cut vegetables with the noodles that would go into a good broth.

It was nice to see the keen interest of the children in making a soup and their great joy when I served them the finished cooled down version in a bowl brought from the kitchen.

The Pre-Kindergarten ate heartily all of the soup and the general verdict was: so yummy ! 

This was a simple recipe with a satisfying result and joyful participation by the children, so please try it at home ! Please use child friendly cutlery and have them stay away from the boiling water, we did not let the children enter the kitchen where our head chef Ms Kotomi was boiling the soup.

I hope she will enjoy some delicious food this weekend as it will be her birthday ! Heartfelt congratulations, Ms.Kotomi !

This long weekend the New Year Celebrations in Kobe Motomachi's China Town will be in full swing, so there surely will be additional delicacies to discover.

Kindly send me a photo of your child eating their favourite food for our unit wall display!

With warm 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 22 Hawaii- Sea life, Hula, Toast, Art and more Culture

 Pre-KG 2025/ 26 Blog 22

Hawaii- Sea life, Hula, Toast, Art and more Culture

This week the DSKI community held its Culture Festival and Ms.Kotomi was going to perform a Hawaiian Hula dance, so we used this opportunity to expand the knowledge in the Pre-Kindergarten on Hawaii and its Sea life, dance and food.

On Monday, we got out our big German book with maps and tried to find Hawaii which was not easy, but our clever children could spot Japan on the map.

As Japan is made of islands just like Hawaii and the maritime life is a bit similar, we introduced a wide range of ocean animals to the children.

We also showed them a photo of Hawaii which features a lot of volcanic mountains, so we made some out of recycled brown paper bags and surrounded the "pools". To introduce new animal names in a quizz like manner and then let the children take the correct animal for a swim in the warm water basin is a fun activity that makes them learn easily.

Boxes are another great tool for learning and I use them often to make dioramas to play with. The children were very interested in making their own mini Hawaii and eagerly glued paper and mountains to create beautiful scenery for all those animals living in the ocean.

These dioramas were present on the tables every day and when the Pre– Kindergarten children did multiple ocean life themed puzzled they checked whether they could find the same animal on the puzzle pictures and in the boxes. 

After a while they could name quite many and were singing and dancing along to this delightful sea animal song:

Sea Animal Song

As the Pre-Kindergarten children love to sing and dance, they were really looking forward to Ms.Kotomi's Hula dance at the DSKI Culture Day on Wednesday, 11.February 2026.

A charming Ms.Kotomi showed a graceful dance with some of our cheerful coworkers and the audience looked spellbound at the movements. Thank you Ms.Kotomi for letting us dream about Hawaii for a while.

The Culture Day was a fantastic event packed with a great program of performances and food stalls with delicacies from around the world run by our fabulous PTA and parents. Thank you all so much for joining this wonderful event, for cooking and contributing and for wearing the beautiful costumes of your country.

At present an amazing exhibition is held at ATOA where I have gone on an excursion with the Pre-KG class in the past and I got hold of some pamphlets. 

ATOA Aquarium x Art

The children cut them to make a collage and then added a variety of colourful sea life. We realized that the children are getting more proficient at holding scissors and cutting papers. The results were a lovely little piece of art which the children were very proud of.

On Friday the children had two more fun activities related to Hawaii, the first one being a cooking session and making Toast Hawaii. 

I have eaten this so often in my childhood in Germany that I thought it was made there and it turned out to be true. A German TV chef created it and I think the Hawaian connection is the pineapple which was somewhat exotic in my days.

Anyway, it is very delicious and the children enjoyed making it, watching it bake in the toaster and they loved eating it! 

Yum, yum, big success ! Please try it at home, it is very satisfying !

To round up our learning, we took the Pre-Kindergarten children to the Fashion Museum exhibition of Shin Hanga. Yes, you read correctly, the beautiful traditional Japanese prints ! As I go to every exhibition before I take the children there, I found several lovely prints there depicting the Hawaiian ocean and surf. 

So off we went looking at these amazing pieces of art ( which we were not allowed to take a pictures of ) and several more with animals like carps, cats, a fox and a peacock. We did not stay very long, maybe 15 minutes as I had chosen the pieces to be viewed, but the key point is to give the children the experience of visiting a museum and appreciating art. For some of our children it was not the first time and they were focused, intrigued and very polite.

This little excursion and the whole week showed again the astounding curiosity and capacity young children have for discovering and learning new things.

I am always humbled by the children's  enthusiasm and thrilled at the progress I can see every day.

As the parents are also life-long learners and the interest in German is very high, I would like to add this clip with names for sea animals.

Please note that it is too long for the children and that they have not learnt these words yet.

Dieses Video ist für die Eltern, viel Spass beim Lernen der deutschen Wörter für die Meerestiere.

Meeresbewohner für Kinder / Eltern

Please enjoy a happy Valentine's day and in Germany Karneval is in full swing - there is always so much to celebrate in February !

We danced to this Karneval song together with the friends from K1 and K2 and everyone had so much fun ! 

Karneval im Kindergarten

This picture also features a sibling of a Pre–Kindergarten child and my German co–teacher Mr.Gerrit who we had to say goodbye to this week. We will miss him and wish him and his family all the best for their future adventures.

Ich wünsche Ihnen allen ein gutes und erlebnisreiches Sankt Valentin Wochenende !

With kind regards, mit freundlichen Grüßen, 

Anita Ursula Mönch

DSKI Pre-Kindergarten homeroom teacher 

Playgroup / EY GFL & Deutsch               German Saturday School homeroom teacher