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