Pre-KG 2025/ 26 Blog 2 Winter Animals and Winter Soup

 Pre-KG 2025/ 26 Blog 2

Winter Animals and Winter Soup

In our current unit I am taking the Pre-Kindergarten children around the world, albeit just figuratively.

After our research last week into the fauna and culture of tropical Hawaii, this week we went to explore the animals in some colder regions and looked at their eating habits.

First we referred again to our many books to see what kind of animals actually live in ice and snow, some permanently, some just during the cold winter.

The children came up with polar bears and pinguins, but then we found a good image that showed that also wolves, deer, reindeers, rabbits and huskies inhabit cold regions and even orcas live in icy water.

We printed the image and the children made another diorama which soon was the home for a multitude of winter animals.

My daughter Hanna had visited Finland this winter, so I also showed the children a photo of her with a husky.

We then watched a lively song in German of a little boy whose best friend is a pinguin.

Pi–Pa–Pinguin

As some of our Pre-Kindergarten friends had missed the making of the first diorama last week and the sea life related art, they added their colourful versions and showed really nice cutting and gluing skills. Beautiful collages, everyone !

Inspired by the icy scenes of the winter world, the children started to make icebergs and winter scenes with our foam blocks and Lego which became more and more elaborate over the week. Animals were added and Elsa and her sister Anna found a home, too.

Back to the food in these winter worlds and to the question what do the animals there actually eat as there is only snow and ice to see.

We were astonished that the children remembered that bears eat fish (BBC footage two blogs ago) and we told them that seals and penguins eat fish, too.

The polar bear was then used as a model to make our own version out of paper plates and the children had a lot of fun crafting them. They especially enjoyed giving their own bear a unique facial expression.

To feed those bears, some of our Pre-Kindergarten children learnt to fold a fish out of Origami paper which was not easy, but they showed persistance and amazing folding skills. Now our polar bears finally had some food.

Folding papers is a sensual experience which children enjoy and need to develop. So after they had touched the snow in a previous week and knew that it is cold as ice, we planned an additional activity to let them experience how cold ice actually is and that it melts through warmth and friction. Yes, our little explorers are getting ready for STEM week as science is a part of it.

We took out the drawing mat and provided the children with icecubes and gloves. Some wanted to touch the ice without the gloves and soon found out that at least they protect us a little from the cold. With wonder the Pre-Kindergarten children discovered that ice is frozen water and does really melt when in contact with warmth. 

They made some interesting ice cube doodles and watched the icecubes melting. Great STEM discovery!

Not only animals, but people need to eat and there is nothing better than a hearty soup in winter. 

The Pre-Kindergarten children have become quite adapt at cutting through previous activities like cutting our toy food and the real fruit for the fruit salad with K1, so they were very excited about another cooking session. 

They marched to the STEM room clad in aprons and holding the proper cutlery utensils and then cut cauliflower, carrots, broccoli and sausages into small pieces while Ms.Kotomi was boiling the noodles in the kitchen. 

When done, she showed them to the children who then mixed the cut vegetables with the noodles that would go into a good broth.

It was nice to see the keen interest of the children in making a soup and their great joy when I served them the finished cooled down version in a bowl brought from the kitchen.

The Pre-Kindergarten ate heartily all of the soup and the general verdict was: so yummy ! 

This was a simple recipe with a satisfying result and joyful participation by the children, so please try it at home ! Please use child friendly cutlery and have them stay away from the boiling water, we did not let the children enter the kitchen where our head chef Ms Kotomi was boiling the soup.

I hope she will enjoy some delicious food this weekend as it will be her birthday ! Heartfelt congratulations, Ms.Kotomi !

This long weekend the New Year Celebrations in Kobe Motomachi's China Town will be in full swing, so there surely will be additional delicacies to discover.

Kindly send me a photo of your child eating their favourite food for our unit wall display!

With warm regards, mit freundlichen Grüßen, 

Anita Ursula Mönch

DSKI Pre-Kindergarten homeroom teacher 

Playgroup / EY GFL & Deutsch      

German Saturday School homeroom teacher