Pre-KG 2021/ 22 Blog 32 Pre-Kindergarten - on the move !

Pre-KG 2021/ 22 Blog 32 

Pre-Kindergarten - on the move ! 

After lots of inquiry into family matters and a fantastic trip with the families to the Kobe Animal Kingdom last week, the Pre-Kindergarten children learnt more about their bodies this week. 

They started with a VERY active Monday that included a trial run for Sports Day with K1 and K2 , walking to a tulip field near Porsche and pulling out tulip bulbs and finally steps up and down to the library, because Monday is our Library Day.

The Pre-Kindergarten children surely got a lot of exercise in one morning!

But the children are always on the move, mentally and physically !

They learnt about their body parts with a Dora worksheet and many can name some or all of them now.

They continue to hone their fine motor skills and grip by using colour pencils, cutting with scissors, picking up paper scraps and gluing them on, putting colour pins into boards, stringing beads and much more.

They also learnt how to hold a rubber ring properly and pass it on to a friend for the Sports day relay.

Still, the focus was also on the gross motor skills, so the children climbed, ran, balanced and kicked balls.

They moved and danced along to one of their favourite movement songs and learnt a new one. 

Please shake and move along with your child at home !

Shake and Move Children's Song

On Thursday, our smaller group of Pre-Kindergarten children went on an errand, buying some buckets at a shop for future excursions.

This day and the mini trip on Rokko Island shows best how much the Pre-Kindergarten children move all day!

Move - the song !

Move ! Dance song for Kids

Dance on the deck on the way to shopping !

Bought the buckets and sat for a minute...

Bucket fun run !

Stretch and exercise with Ms.Miho at the end of the day !

Due to heavy rain on Friday our DSKI Sports Day was postponed, but the children enjoyed another practice session.

Finally, the Pre-Kindergarten children do not only move their bodies, but they also move hearts!

Because Mother’s Day falls into our Golden Week holidays this year the Pre-Kindergarten children crafted some beautiful flowers to give to their mothers to thank them for always taking so good care of them ! Everyone loves their mum !

Thank you, mum, Okasan arigato, Gracias Mama, Danke Mama, Merci Maman !

Happy Golden Week, happy children’s Day and happy Mother’s Day to all of you !

Yours, 

Anita Ursula Mönch

DSKI Pre-Kindergarten homeroom teacher 

PS For parents who are new to Kobe, please know that there is a beautiful flower themed event in Kitano-cho, north o Sannomiya this weekend. It is called INFIORATA and features wonderful flower carpets / pictures made of tulip petals.

It is free to visit, so please enjoy the event with your family !

Pre-KG 2021/22 Blog 31 Family Fun and Excursion to Kobe Animal Kingdom

Pre-KG 2021/ 22 Blog 31 

Family Fun and Excursion to Kobe Animal Kingdom 

The children started this week with welcoming yet another new friend, this time little Malin.

Malin Vogel and her family have only just arrived from Germany, but Malin fitted right into the class and the Pre-KG children are very happy to have her to play with. Her brother Michel joined K2 and also is making friends fast.

A heartfelt welcome to the whole Familie Vogel to our Pre-KG class and the DSKI community. Herzlich Willkommen !

Malin came on her trial day with her mother and it is always interesting for the children to see their friends’ parents.

When the Pre-KG children planted the seeds that the PTA had kindly given us into the egg shells, they were very interested in the process.

Then Malin’s mum told us that her daughter also sometimes plants seeds with her at home, so I asked the Pre-KG children what kind of activities they do with their parents or their family.

It turns out that they have a lot of fun together - going to the park on slides and swings, building train tracks at home together, playing soccer and riding bicycles.

The children are now talking more and more about their families and slowly most of them seem to grasp the idea who actually belongs to their family.

Using lego figurines they build different settings and it was wonderful to see the children’s creativity.

Books are always one of my favourite teaching tools, so I introduced the children to Dora, the Explorer who is the heroine of a popular series of books and videos. Dora is adventurous, she speaks Spanish as well as English, has a monkey friend called Boots and, in the book we read, just had become a big sister to twins ! Dora books introduce the children to more complex stories about a little girl’s adventures and her family.

The children were also going to go on an adventure aka an excursion, so we talked in class about the fun destination for the first Pre-Kindergarten excursion this year - the Kobe Animal Kingdom park and we shared the exciting news that their parents would come along !

With this trip the Pre-KG children were connecting their previous unit about "Animals and Food" to their current unit of "Family and Body"

We looked at the map of the park in class and matched some of the animals that are featured there.

On Friday then seven of us took the school bus and the rest came by car and we all met at the park.

The Kobe Animal Kingdom features a multitude of animals in a colourful, flower filled setting and quite a few roam around freely and can be petted or even fed. 

The children spent some fun-filled and thrilling hours with their friends, families and teachers and surely learnt one or two new things.

What a fantastic opportunity to connect our learning to activities in an exciting environment and share it with our families !

Yours, 

Anita Ursula Mönch

DSKI Pre-Kindergarten homeroom teacher 

Pre-KG 2021/ 22 Blog 30 Let’s face it - the Pre-KG children are good at many things!

Pre-KG 2021/ 22 Blog 30 

Let’s face it - the Pre-KG children are good at many things! 

Throughout the school year the Pre-KG children are learning so many new things and we can witness their steady progress. 

Based on our holistic approach to teaching children in Pre-KG, the children are constantly supported in their mental, physical, emotional, social and spiritual wellbeing.

First shy and hesitant, the children start to socialise, they become more confident communicators, take risks, care for others and are openminded when taking turns or letting other children have a go. They eat their bentos without fuss, ask many questions, inquire about solutions and learn to play by rules- showing that they have become principled as well.

Teachers are very lucky to be part of this wonderful process and it is a joy to see the children grow.

In every learning journey (for adults as well!) it is important not to get discouraged and try again and again until we get better at something.

So when some of the Pre-KG children faced difficulties with positioning parts of the face last week, we offered other approaches this time.

Play dough is one of the favourite tools in this class (every year it is different) to understand new learning concepts, so we used it for creating more faces. It was a lot of fun and just the feel of the smooth and squishy play dough is enough for some of the children to feel calm and focused.

Cutting is one of the fine motor skills that many parents are reluctant to teach and it does take a lot of practice. As some of our children do not come to class every day, we have fewer children on Tuesdays and Thursdays which enables us to watch the children better improve their cutting skills.

Some of them managed the task of cutting parts of the face from a worksheet and glue them on nicely and we loved the joy shown on their faces when they succeeded.

To enhance the children’s knowledge in an active way, we always include songs. Head, shoulders, knees and toes is an oldie, but very useful song. 

Ms.Miho also integrated this song in her P.E.lesson and the children again had so much fun !

Head, Shoulders, Knees

Please try it with your child at home as well !

When a child starts in Pre-KG, I give out a Booklet with songs that the class sings throughout the year. 

One of the songs is “This is the way I wash my face” etc., which I adapted to the old tune of ‘Here we go round the Mulberry Bush “.

The song not only gives opportunities for singing along and individual replies (What did you eat this morning ? How did you come to school ? ), but for lots of gestures and motions like washing the face or combing the hair.

The children love to do the movements, so we ended the week and the “face” study with singing the song and making different faces using our new mirrors.

I am quite sure that everyone can find their nose or eyes by now and if not just sing along to our songs.

This week the class also had the chance to celebrate Emma’s 3.birthday together, singing, making a colourful card and dancing with balloons. 

Thank you so much to Emma’s parents for all the nice and thoughtful gifts, everyone was so thrilled !

All the best for your 3. Birthday, Emma, we are so happy to have had the chance to celebrate with you !

Yours, 

Anita Ursula Mönch

DSKI Pre-Kindergarten homeroom teacher