Pre-KG 2024/ 25 Blog 10 Der Herbst, der Herbst, der Herbst ist da !

 Pre-KG 2024/ 25 Blog 10

Der Herbst, der Herbst, der Herbst ist da ! 

Nach einem langen und heißen Sommer ist es endlich etwas herbstlich geworden, mit kühleren Temperaturen und dem Färben der Blätter. Der Herbst bringt seine ganz eigenen Farben mit sich, Nuancen von Rot, Braun, Orange, Gelb und Ocker sowie viele verschiedene Formen. 

Die Pre–Kindergarten Kinder und ihre Freunde feierten den Herbstbeginn mit einem schönen Lied, Herbstmalereien, Halloween und einem herbstlichen Snack. 

After a long and hot summer autumn has finally arrived ! Autumn brings its own palette of colours with nuances of red, brown, orange, yellow and ochre and a multitude of shapes we connect with this season. 

The Pre–Kindergarten children and their friends celebrated the arrival of autumn with a beautiful German song, autumn art, Halloween and an autumn snack.

Der Herbst, der Herbst, der Herbst ist da

Depending on what country you are from, autumn might mean different things for you - jumping into piles of dried leaves, harvesting apples, pears, berries, grapes, 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. 

Here is another charming German autumn song depicting this beautiful season and harvest activities. 

Bunt sind schon die Wälder

In order to decorate their autumn mandalas, the Pre–Kindergarten children went on a walk and what a wonderful time they had! 

The children eagerly searched for leaves and sticks, showed them to their friends and were very proud when their baskets slowly filled up !

It was a fantastic opportunity to enjoy the sunny weather, fresh air and share smiles and autumn bounty which we will use for our mandala art project ! 

On Thursday then the school celebrated Halloween and the school‘s hallway was beautifully decorated by Emma’s mother, Ms.Shinno and her family and team. 

They also provided the teachers with interesting items which the children could get for their trick and treat. The Pre–Kindergarten children in their cute costumes went to take a picture with Ms.Makiko and Mr.Lance, next to the handcrafted pumpkins and ghost! 

Thank you so much, dear Aiko–san for all your hard work and we really admire your artistic talent. 

Halloween might be celebrated more commonly these days, but it was not around when I was a child in Germany or even upon my arrival in Japan. So what is Halloween ? 

Quote : “Halloween, contraction of All Hallows’ Eve, a holiday observed on October 31, the evening before All Saints’ (or All Hallows’) Day. The celebration marks the day before the Western Christian feast of All Saints and initiates the season of Allhallowtide, which lasts three days and concludes with All Souls’ Day. In much of Europe and most of North America, observance of Halloween is largely nonreligious.”

For more information you may look at Wikipedia or Britannica,  so here is one of the links to the Halloween explanations.

Britannica / Halloween

Last year I explained another fact which the parents found very interesting: 

In the south of Germany we used to carve Rübengeister from Zuckerrüben (sugar beets), which look very similar to Jack-o-lanterns.

Please find the story here, it is only in German though.

Rübengeistern

Finally on Friday, we set our Pre–Kindergarten table nicely including some of the leaves we had found and the beautiful autumn tree art and then finally got to taste some of autumn’s treats in the form of delicious chestnuts and sweet, juicy apples! 

There were voices of „yummy“ and „lecker“ all 

around and because the Pre–Kindergarten children are caring, they shared with some friends and teachers of K1 and K2. 

Well, the children have learnt a lot about sharing and soon we will learn more about a man called Sankt Martin who shared his coat with a freezing beggar ….

But this is a story and adventure for next week.

Have a blissful weekend, enjoying delicious treats from Mother Nature ! 

Kind regards, 

Anita Ursula Mönch 

DSKI Pre–Kindergarten homeroom teacher Playgroup / EY Deutsch & German          German Saturday School homeroom teacher