Pre-KG 2024/ 25 Blog 17 Fröhliche Weihnachten – Merry Christmas

Pre-KG 2024/ 25 Blog 17

Fröhliche Weihnachten – Merry Christmas

Diese letzte Woche vor den Winterferien war kurz, aber voller Glücksmomente und weihnachtlicher Stimmung! 

                             Die Pre–Kindergarten Kinder spielten alle friedlich miteinander und zeigten, dass sie in den letzten Monaten große Fortschritte auch in ihrem Sozialverhalten gemacht haben, dass sie gelernt haben abzuwarten, ihren Freunden zu helfen und ihre Spielsachen zu teilen ! 

Welche Freude zu sehen, dass sie zu einer tollen Klasse zusammengewachsen sind! 

Es wurde die schönen Lieder geübt für unser Weihnachtskonzert und es wurden die handgemachten Karten eingetütet für den Bazar sowie die Krippe und die Weihnachtsgeschichte bestaunt. 

Ihr Kinderlein kommet

Beim Weihnachtskonzert war es dann wunderbar zu sehen, dass die Kinder große Freude hatten mit ihren Freunden von K1und K2 den Eltern und der Schulgemeinde Weihnachtslieder vorzutragen und sie haben es trotz Lampenfieber wirklich toll gemacht.

Bravo, liebe Pre–Kindergarten Kinder, wir sind sehr stolz auf euch ! 

The last week before the winter holidays is always a very short and a very busy one.

Nevertheless, the Pre–Kindergarten children showed great calmness and also great progress in their social skills by playing together nicely, sharing toys and taking turns. 

They helped each other packaging the handmade Christmas cards and get ready for the bazaar and concert! 

They demonstrated what peaceful Christmas time is all about.

The children also took to the stage and rendered a charming performance of two Christmas songs in English and German and then joined their friends from K1and K2 for the finale ! It was heartwarming to see how well all children got along and a big applause, because there was quite a bit of risk taking involved standing on stage in front of so many people ! 

Little Snowflake

Kling Glöckchen

I hope you got some good pictures and videos ! 

During the Christmas market, there was lots of excitement and our little shop attendants aka Pre–Kindergarten children were busy exploring the booths of their siblings, friends or parents, so the Pre–Kindergarten teachers and their lovely helper did a good job and we completely sold out of our handmade goods ! Vielen Dank an all unsere großzügigen Käufer ! 

On the last day of school then Santa came and what a splendid figure he cut with a real beard and in a beautiful attire.

But alas, even though Santa is the generous provider of gifts, he is a new person to our little ones and some tears were shed. 

With some support of the teachers and through Santa’s calm attitude every child then was the happy recipient of a beautiful gift, a book, which was kindly sponsored and wrapped by our fantastic DSKI PTA. Thank you always so much ! 

I gave Santa some advice in advance and hope you enjoy the charming book and story with your child ! 

The children also received a bookmark present from the teachers which goes along with the book!

At the end of eventful three days, the children exercised their gross motor skills by racing to their various holiday destinations on our multitude of cars ! Such a joyful time ! 

And then there was a nice surprise as Santa came to the teachers with lovely presents delivered by Ms.Shinno and family on behalf of the Pre–Kindergarten parents.

Together with my co– teachers Ms Priyanka and Mr.Derek, I would like to express my gratitude for your heartwarming gesture, we truly appreciate all the support and love we receive from you.

Thank you also to our fabulous Pre–Kindergarten PTA representatives, Ms. Aiko Shinno and Ms. Noriko Ikegami for all their hard work and kindness . 

We wish all Pre–Kindergarten families a peaceful and joyful Christmas time and all the best for a healthy and happy New Year 2025! 

May you all be blessed with everything good  from above! 

Vielen herzlichen Dank an all unsere lieben Pre–Kindergarten Eltern für die Unterstützung und liebevollen Gesten, wir wissen euch sehr zu schätzen! 

Wir wünschen euch eine fröhliche und besinnliche Weihnachtszeit und Gesundheit! Frieden und Freude für das neue Jahr 2025! 

With kind regards, 

Mit herzlichen Grüßen, 

Anita Ursula Mönch 

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

German Saturday School homeroom teacher 

Pre-KG 2024/ 25 Blog 16 The wonders of life

Pre-KG 2024/ 25 Blog 16

The wonders of life

  Right in the middle of the Christmas season, the Pre–Kindergarten children are beginning with their new unit which focuses on „Animals and Food“. Of course this is not an abrupt start of a new subject, but a deeper inquiry into themes close to our hearts.

The children are looking at their snack and lunch boxes every day and now that they are starting to express themselves better, we can hear more comments about the food that they are eating at school. 

We have a play kitchen in the classroom where the children are cooking carrots and other vegetables, but it might still be difficult for them to understand a life cycle.

So we are very grateful to have the field nearby the school where we already harvested sweet potatoes and now planted tulip bulbs with all our friends and teachers from EY which was an enriching experience for all.

In the previous weeks when we visited the field it was bare, now the children put in the bulbs and we will go and check from time to time, so the children get to witness growth.

On Wednesday then we had the fantastic opportunity to take the popular red school bus and go on a field trip to ATOA, which combines Art with an Aquarium, therefore bridging our two units. 

For the Pre–Kindergarten children it was very important to see different forms of aquatic life, to witness the movement of living creatures and to learn about sizes of different species ( tiny fish and giant turtles ! ) 

Sure enough, they loved the many colourful fish, were excited at the smooth swimming, marveled at stingrays, carps, capybaras and were thrilled to witness the feeding of otters, penguins and turtles.

ATOA also features an area where images are used to create a magic atmosphere between art, fish and sound and if you have not been there, I would suggest to visit and let yourself be enchanted.

And please don’t forget to take in the magnificent views over the Kobe Harbor from the rooftop ! 

In this first excursion, the Pre–Kindergarten  children, their parents and teachers spent a valuable and lovely time together and we all learnt something new. 

ATOA KOBE

Thank you so much to everyone for coming along!

The week the children further continued making crafts, singing songs and practicing on stage for the upcoming concert.

I have will link the songs again and the children really love them and perform cheerfully, but please remember that they are very young and there will be a big audience on the day of the concert, so kindly support them and value their risktaking by trying their best. 

Little Snowflake

Kling Glöckchen

The Pre–Kindergarten children also went on a stroll in the sunshine to search for animals in the form of beautiful butterflies and bees inspired by books in ATOA and some stickers which they had received, but alas it has become winter and there was nothing flying around. Let’s find other creatures next time ! 

We are looking forward to next week in the  spirit of Christmas full of harmony and cheer and some exciting events including the concert, the Christmas Market and a visit from Santa Claus. 

Wishing you a relaxing weekend and joyful 3. Advent ! 

Kind regards, 

Mit herzlichen Grüßen, 

Anita Ursula Mönch 

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

German Saturday School homeroom teacher 

Pre-KG 2024/ 25 Blog 15 Snowflakes, Sea life and a wonderful Sankt Nikolaus Day

Pre-KG 2024/ 25 Blog 15

Snowflakes, Sea life and a wonderful Sankt Nikolaus Day

The Pre–Kindergarten children like the rest of the school open their Advent Calendar every day which features different activities.

The week started with the task of picking up a certain amount of scattered paper snowflakes and count them, so the children did this diligently and worked a bit on their math skills. 

As the children had previously coloured a variety of Nikolaus ( Santa) boots, we thought it would be a good idea to connect the learning in the classroom to the outside and go on a search for snowflake and Santa boots shapes. 

With no snow and no boots put outside yet, we went to a shop where the Pre–Kindergarten children did a great job discovering the indicated shapes and they were very excited about it.

In class we then added a snowflake matching activity where the children pointed to pairs of snowflakes. We send the illustration home, so please cut the different snowflakes, mix them and have the children find corresponding pairs which will help develop their recognition and math skills. 

Another activity from the Advent Calendar was „Pin the nose on the reindeer“ which had everything laughing with joy.

Next week the Pre–Kindergarten children will go on their first excursion to the beautiful ATOA aquarium and we started to introduce some of the vocabulary for sea life. Almost everyone knew the word fish, so the children practiced a bit of fishing and counting. 

Additionally we walked to our school‘s aquarium where the children counted 3 big fish and endless small ones.

To foster their understanding of what type of animals live in the sea and in other bodies of water, the children built some pools using colourful sponge shapes and let a variety of sea creatures „ swim“ around . 

We also read an interesting book where a diver discovers the wondrous underwater world and you can move a little screen to make the images come alive. 

The children were fascinated by this and it was wonderful to witness their eagerness to point out various animals. 

Our diver in the book got to wear a Nikolaus hat, because on Friday we celebrated Sankt Nikolaus with wonderful surprises. 

Sankt Nikolaus was a real person, a bishop who did many good deeds. A multitude of stories exist, but he helped poor families and gave presents to children. We remember him and his kindness by celebrating his special day on 6th December, dem Nikolaustag.

Being a school with a German background the children in Pre–Kindergarten and in the EY German classes enjoyed watching this little clip telling his story.

Sankt Nikolaus

Wir haben auch ein schönes, traditionelles Nikolaus Lied gesungen, das sich bei allen Kindern großer Beliebtheit erfreute.

Lasst uns froh und munter sein

Am 6. Dezember kam dann der Nikolaus auch zu uns in die Schule und legte heimlich Mandarinen in die Schuhe der Kinder. 

Wie war die Freude groß als diese am Nachmittag von den Kindern entdeckt wurden!  „Nikolaus war da, Nikolaus came, Mikan moratta“ waren einige der glücklichen Kommentare ! What a joy ! 

We also have our own Nicholas in Kindergarten and he generously shared some goodies with friends of Early Years! Thank you for being so kind ! 

And then we had an additional surprise on this day in the form of a wonderful Nikolaus Konzert, initiated by some of our DSKI parents and featuring some wonderful musicians.

Mr. Phillip Strange on piano, Mr. von Baron on drums and Mr. Ryo Hatakeyama on Bass enchanted the DSKI audience with jazz Christmas tunes, beautifully and skillfully rendered on their instruments. 

The children, parents and teachers listened mesmerized and after rounds of applause no one wanted to leave the MPR, a true sign that this music was a special gift enjoyed by all.

Thank you so much to the three kind and talented gentlemen musicians, we are full of gratitude and happiness! 

May you all carry the sparkle of joy and have a peaceful 2nd Advent ! 

Kind regards, 

Mit herzlichen Grüßen, 

Anita Ursula Mönch 

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

German Saturday School homeroom teacher