Pre-KG 2022 / 23 Blog 10 Joyful times

Pre-KG 2022 / 23 Blog 10

Joyful times 

The Pre-Christmas season is always a special time.

It involves a change of seasons as we are transferring from autumn to winter and it hopefully brings a change of attitude and heart to some.

Even people who are not religious are often touched by the prevailing atmosphere of festivity and feelings of gratitude, generosity and good cheer.

The time starting four weeks before Christmas is called "Advent" where people prepare for the celebration of Christ’s birth on 24th December or have a more commercial approach, but generally everyone spends a joyful time together.

                 

The word “Advent” derives from Latin and means “Arrival” in English or “Ankunft” in German.

Since my childhood days the Advent Calendar is one of the happy things in this season and every morning from 1st December to 24th a little door or pouch is opened which contains a chocolate in a fancy shape or other sweets and surprises.

When I moved to Japan many years ago, my parents sent the Adventkalender from Germany, but nowadays it has become very popular and you can buy it in many places.

But how lucky are the children at our school that our wonderful PTA is making these calendars by themselves and every class is presented with a handcrafted one.

The Pre-KG children are looking forward to receiving theirs at the Christmas light-up ceremony next Monday.

Thank you again to our PTA and the Pre-KG parents for their donation of treats!

To bring joy to all their friends, fellow students and family members, the Pre-KG children have been busy crafting Candy Canes to sell at our DSKI Christmas Market on the last day of school.

The children have been learning the names of the colours well and some can say them in different languages. They are also very certain about their choices and therefore many colourful canes and also cute triangle ornaments have been crafted.

The Candy Canes will only be available at the Market, but today the children proudly put their ornaments on the tree in the hallway.

Every Friday, the Pre-KG have a P.E. lesson with Ms. Miho and this week they had a fantastic time climbing, challenging themselves to new tasks and rolling in a ball bath with colourful balls.

Lastly, the Pre-KG children are also enjoying the lovely and warm autumn weather and playing with their friends from K1 and K2.

Whether at the green field or in our backyard, the sand areas are very popular, especially for sand cake and cookie making. We have told the children that we will soon bake together at school, so using different shapes, sieves and spatula is a good practice for the real thing.

I heard that many families bake together in this season, so please enjoy the delicious taste of home made cookies together or (as in my case) some delicious store bought chocolates.

Happy weekend and a joyful 1st Advent on Sunday !

Am 1.Advent, wenn die erste Kerze brennt

Ein schönes Wochenende, frohes Backen und einen guten 1.Advent am Sonntag, 27.November 2022 !

Yours, 

Anita Ursula Mönch

DSKI Pre-Kindergarten homeroom teacher 

Playgroup / EY German 

Pre-KG 2022 / 23 Blog 9 Shapes, Colours and the Silk Road

Pre-KG 2022 / 23 Blog 9

Shapes, Colours and the Silk Road

On their journey to learn about colours and shapes in their first unit, we are giving the Pre-Kindergarten children the chance to go down many roads.

In one of the previous weeks the children had started to decorate an art pamphlet with triangles to make a colourful dress / coat / kimono for themselves. As the pamphlet depicted their own face this activity was very popular and connected the children to every day occurrences like dressing themselves.

In Pre-Kindergarten the children do many kinds of activities, some at the table, some outside and some on the carpet. The children love the balloons and the pictures on our classroom carpets, so we showed them some prints of other carpets and the children matched a variety of magnetic shapes onto these pictures and then started to create houses for different inhabitants.

Afterwards the children made carpets on their individual posters by gluing squares into colourful patterns.

Another day we gave the children the challenge of creating triangles out of straws to make Christmas ornaments for our DSKI Christmas tree. 

It was amazing to see how concentrated and focused the children were on their task.

They showed risk taking and determination and great joy once the ornament was finished. We are looking forward to hanging the ornaments onto the tree at the light up ceremony on Monday, 28.November 2022.

Finally, on Friday, the whole class had the opportunity to expand their knowledge of patterns and carpets by making an excursion to the fantastic Silk Road Carpet Museum on Rokko Island.

I had visited there previously and then confirmed by phone if it would be ok not only to visit, but touch the precious silk carpets with a group of 2 year olds and the staff was very accommodating.

We were welcomed with a big hello and smile and we presented the staff with some sweets. 

The children then had a fabulous time feeling the different surfaces and materials of the beautiful carpets and admiring the patterns.

They also learnt that some carpets are made of wool which comes from sheep.

It was astonishing to see the skill and workmanship that goes into the treasured carpets of the Silk Road.

I am a big believer in giving children many different, engaging, interesting and safe learning opportunities and experience has shown that even very young children always take something with them from these learning adventures.

Please have a look at the museum with your child if you have time. it is really enchanting and you might learn yourself one thing or another about the art of carpet making !

The Museum of Silk Road carpets

Have a joyful and healthy weekend !

Yours, 

Anita Ursula Mönch

DSKI Pre-Kindergarten homeroom teacher 

Playgroup / EY German 

Pre-KG 2022 / 23 Blog 8 The message of St.Martin - Sharing is Caring !

Pre-KG 2022 / 23 Blog 8

The message of St.Martin - Sharing is Caring !

On 11.11 Germany and many other countries celebrate the festival of Sankt Martin who is a much beloved saint.

There are processions with people holding beautiful handcrafted lanterns following a person on horseback with a red cloak (coat) and a sword representing St.Martin and his good deed.

So who is St.Martin ? Martin was actually called Martin of Tours and he was made a soldier by his father against his will. While stationed in France on a cold winter night he encountered a poor beggar who had only rags as clothes.

Martin took pity on him and cut his warm coat into half and gave one half to the freezing beggar.

Martin was said to have done many additional good deeds and therefore was later made a saint, but the celebration depicts the sharing of the coat with the message that caring is sharing.

The message of caring about each other and sharing is universal and even small children can understand it.

While we teachers always role model and encourage caring behaviour in class, this week was to highlight the actions and give the children more awareness and even more praise.

And we were very happy to see how nicely and easily the children shared toys, crayons, space, smiles, friends and stayed open minded to differences.

The children were also very helpful and even shared cleaning chores. 

A special thank you to Johanna, Elias’ mum for donating some colourful and very interesting books on transportation which the children found really fascinating.

And a big thank you to Elias for sharing the books ! Elias is our newest friend in the Pre-Kindergarten and will join our class in a week.

A big welcome to him and his parents, we are so happy to have you with us !

The week included a lot of singing the famous St.Martin and lantern songs and role playing the St.Martin deed with horses and even lego figurines.

St.Martin Lied

The Pre-KG children as well as the K1 German class made some colourful lanterns and the K2 German class acted out a small St.Martin play.

Laterne, Laterne

On Friday then there was a beautiful lantern procession from school around Rokko Island.

Wishing you all a wonderful weekend, shared with family and friends !

Yours, 

Anita Ursula Mönch

DSKI Pre-Kindergarten homeroom teacher 

Playgroup / EY German 

PS:Below is the transcript from a German website with the story of St.Martin. 

Jedes Jahr finden rund um den Martinstag am 11. November überall Martinsumzüge statt. Vor allem die Kinder laufen mit wunderschönen selbstgebastelten Laternen durch die Straßen und singen Martinslieder. Mit dabei ist immer ein Reiter mit prachtvollem Mantel auf einem Pferd. Er stellt den Sankt Martin dar. Denn ihm zu Ehren feiern wir das Martinsfest.

Wer war eigentlich dieser heilige Martin? Eigentlich hieß er Martin von Tours. Geboren wurde er 316 oder 317 in Savaria, das damals zum römischen Reich gehörte und heute zu Ungarn. Sein Vater war ein römischer Offizier und deswegen musste auch Martin gegen seinen Willen zum Militär. Schon mit 15 Jahren wurde er als Leibwache bei Kaiser Konstantin eingestellt.

Die gute Tat

Während seiner Zeit als Soldat trug sich eine bekannte Geschichte zu, die wir heute im Lied "Sankt Martin" besingen. Der 17-Jährige war im Norden des heutigen Frankreichs stationiert. An einem eiskalten Tag im Winter ritt er gerade zum Stadttor hinaus, als er einen armen Mann traf, der keine Kleider anhatte. 

Der Bettler sprach ihn an und bat um Hilfe. Martin hatte außer seinen Waffen und seinem Mantel nichts bei sich, was er ihm hätte geben können. So nahm er kurzerhand sein Schwert und teilte den Mantel in der Mitte durch. Die eine Hälfte gab er dem Bettler, die andere legte er sich um die Schultern. In der folgenden Nacht hatte Martin einen Traum: Er sah Jesus, bekleidet mit dem halben Mantel, den er dem Bettler gegeben hatte.

Für diese gute Tat wird Martin heute noch verehrt und soll ein Vorbild dafür sein, seinen Nächsten zu lieben wie sich selbst.