Pre-KG 2021/ 22 Blog 10 Autumn Joys

Pre-KG 2021/ 22 Blog 10   Autumn Joys

Autumn is finally upon us, the days have become cooler, but luckily the sun is still shining.

Depending on what country you are from, autumn might mean different things for you - jumping into piles of dried leaves, harvesting apples, pears, berries, wheat and pumpkins, crafting with acorns and chestnuts, eating seasonal food like mushrooms, persimmons and sweet potatoes or letting kites fly on a stubble field.

The Pre-Kindergarten children have been enjoying walks to the nearby park where they made “leaf soup” under the trees and then found a treasure trove of acorns! 

How lucky and happy the children were to collect buckets! full of beautiful, smooth, brown acorns and then share them with their friends in K1 and K2.

The Pre-KG children also helped to wash the sweet potatoes (some of them giants!) which were harvested by their friends of K2 with Ms.Pam at the nearby field.

In autumn we celebrate Thanksgiving and Halloween, so the children looked at many different vegetables, finding them in our books, toy boxes and on puzzles. 

The children liked the little Halloween pumpkins very much and tried to create some out of play dough They made lots of interesting shapes and decorated them nicely with leaves as well.

As the children had collected many items in nature, we decided to make some autumn fairies using our natural resources and white round paper plates. 

The white circles also came in handy, when making some seasonal ghosts, complete with triangle and square shaped facial features.

The children had a lot of fun crafting and decorating our Pre-Kindergarten door for the season.

On Thursday two of the Pre-KG children went on a secret mission with the principal , buying all the cookies and healthy treats (Japanese delicious mikan!) for the children at the school for trick or treat on Friday.

The week ended with cute and colourful costumes, fun games, trick and treating ( thank you to Ms.Azusa, Ms.Miho, Mr.Inman, Ms.Ida and the PTA ) and a lot of dancing in the classroom!

Happy Thanksgiving, Erntedankfest, Halloween or whatever you might be celebrating in this season !

Yours, 

Anita Ursula Mönch

DSKI Pre-Kindergarten homeroom teacher

Pre-KG 2021/ 22 Blog 9 FISH ABOUND

Pre-KG 2021/ 22 Blog 9   FISH ABOUND

While learning about *Colours and Shapes*, the Pre-Kindergarten children have noticed that there are so many more shapes in the world around them than the usual ones like *circle, triangle, square, oval etc*. 

They have discovered heart and flower shapes on their clothing, and bear shapes on their lunch boxes. The children also enjoy creating with a puzzle from Germany that is very popular in our classroom. It is called “Parkett Fische” - a whole bunch of colourful wooden fish shapes that can be made into mosaics or long lines for counting.

One of our boys in class is fascinated with fish and he wears often a fish and ocean themed T-shirt.

Appropriately named Kai (sea), he shares his love for all things ocean with his home room teacher Anita and he got all his classmates excited about the subject as well.

So we started the week with our fish shape puzzle, moved on to catching various fish with magnet tipped fishing rods, counted the fish in our school aquarium, made a poster collage and learnt about the story of SWIMMY.

The black, brave and clever fish called Swimmy was different from the others and used his difference to save his friends.

The children love printing with paint, stamps and sponges and previous experience served them well when they created original SWMMY prints. They turned out really nicely and the children were very proud of them.

To top off an already busy week, we went on Friday to the nearby FASHION MUSEUM where an exhibition with art of the one and only RIUSUKE FUKAHORI was held.

Matching our theme of fish, Mr.Fukahori is known around the world for creating absolutely fascinating images of goldfish which look 3D, but are actually multi layered paintings embedded in resin. 

The result is stunning and unique as he is the one who invented this technique. 

Please talk to your child about their experience, because the children were very excited about the visit to the museum and with the art and many goldfish there. 

As fish are a symbol of prosperity as well as tranquility, I wish you all a blessed and tranquil weekend ! 

Yours, 

Anita Ursula Mönch

DSKI Pre-Kindergarten homeroom teacher

Pre-KG 2021/ 22 Blog 8 ELMER & the OKTOBERFEST

Pre-KG  Blog 8

ELMER & the OKTOBERFEST 

Books are a big part in our Pre-Kindergarten life, supported by the fact that the homeroom teacher, Mrs.Anita Ursula Mönch, is an avid reader herself.

We have a good variety of books in the classroom, including the much beloved books of Eric Carle which teach everything from colours, animals, numbers to life cycles and much more.

Every Monday the Pre-Kindergarten children also have LIBRARY time where they can choose a book they like from our big school library to take home to read with their parents and most recently the ELMER books have caught the children”s attention.

Elmer is a patchwork elephant, whose coat is made of many colourful squares. He has a cheerful and optimistic personality and as he looks different from other elephants, shows diversity.

Elmer is perfect for our current unit exploring “Colours and Shapes” and he surely represents the many colourful and different aspects of our school life and people in our school community.

The children were eager to create their own Elmers, so they started by colouring their first versions using many different crayons.

After revising the shapes and some discussion about Elmer’s colour shapes, the children decided they were definitely SQUARES.

On another day then we set up a spacious work area where the children enjoyed picking paper squares in their favourite colours and creating a very original ELMER.

And what a great opportunity to give Elmer an additional coat, this time of blue and white DIAMOND shapes, so he could join the fun of OKTOBERFEST at our school.

The children helped decorate the hallway with colourful drawings of DIRNDL and LEDERHOSE and blue and white streamers. 

Delighted with their versatile Elmer, the Pre-KG children took him along for their Bavarian dances and Oktoberfest activities.

They had a fun time with a variety of games in the beautifully decorated school and finished the week in a cheerful, happy mood just like Elmer while celebrating one of our most beloved German festivals.

Thank you for all your help, Oktoberfest team (Ms.Lisa, Ms.Renu and Mr.Stefan) and all the PTA parents ......and for the delicious Brezels!

Ein frohes Oktoberfest und ein schönes Wochenende !

Yours, 

Anita Ursula Mönch

DSKI Pre-Kindergarten homeroom teacher