Pre-KG 2025/ 26 Blog 22 Hawaii- Sea life, Hula, Toast, Art and more Culture

 Pre-KG 2025/ 26 Blog 22

Hawaii- Sea life, Hula, Toast, Art and more Culture

This week the DSKI community held its Culture Festival and Ms.Kotomi was going to perform a Hawaiian Hula dance, so we used this opportunity to expand the knowledge in the Pre-Kindergarten on Hawaii and its Sea life, dance and food.

On Monday, we got out our big German book with maps and tried to find Hawaii which was not easy, but our clever children could spot Japan on the map.

As Japan is made of islands just like Hawaii and the maritime life is a bit similar, we introduced a wide range of ocean animals to the children.

We also showed them a photo of Hawaii which features a lot of volcanic mountains, so we made some out of recycled brown paper bags and surrounded the "pools". To introduce new animal names in a quizz like manner and then let the children take the correct animal for a swim in the warm water basin is a fun activity that makes them learn easily.

Boxes are another great tool for learning and I use them often to make dioramas to play with. The children were very interested in making their own mini Hawaii and eagerly glued paper and mountains to create beautiful scenery for all those animals living in the ocean.

These dioramas were present on the tables every day and when the Pre– Kindergarten children did multiple ocean life themed puzzled they checked whether they could find the same animal on the puzzle pictures and in the boxes. 

After a while they could name quite many and were singing and dancing along to this delightful sea animal song:

Sea Animal Song

As the Pre-Kindergarten children love to sing and dance, they were really looking forward to Ms.Kotomi's Hula dance at the DSKI Culture Day on Wednesday, 11.February 2026.

A charming Ms.Kotomi showed a graceful dance with some of our cheerful coworkers and the audience looked spellbound at the movements. Thank you Ms.Kotomi for letting us dream about Hawaii for a while.

The Culture Day was a fantastic event packed with a great program of performances and food stalls with delicacies from around the world run by our fabulous PTA and parents. Thank you all so much for joining this wonderful event, for cooking and contributing and for wearing the beautiful costumes of your country.

At present an amazing exhibition is held at ATOA where I have gone on an excursion with the Pre-KG class in the past and I got hold of some pamphlets. 

ATOA Aquarium x Art

The children cut them to make a collage and then added a variety of colourful sea life. We realized that the children are getting more proficient at holding scissors and cutting papers. The results were a lovely little piece of art which the children were very proud of.

On Friday the children had two more fun activities related to Hawaii, the first one being a cooking session and making Toast Hawaii. 

I have eaten this so often in my childhood in Germany that I thought it was made there and it turned out to be true. A German TV chef created it and I think the Hawaian connection is the pineapple which was somewhat exotic in my days.

Anyway, it is very delicious and the children enjoyed making it, watching it bake in the toaster and they loved eating it! 

Yum, yum, big success ! Please try it at home, it is very satisfying !

To round up our learning, we took the Pre-Kindergarten children to the Fashion Museum exhibition of Shin Hanga. Yes, you read correctly, the beautiful traditional Japanese prints ! As I go to every exhibition before I take the children there, I found several lovely prints there depicting the Hawaiian ocean and surf. 

So off we went looking at these amazing pieces of art ( which we were not allowed to take a pictures of ) and several more with animals like carps, cats, a fox and a peacock. We did not stay very long, maybe 15 minutes as I had chosen the pieces to be viewed, but the key point is to give the children the experience of visiting a museum and appreciating art. For some of our children it was not the first time and they were focused, intrigued and very polite.

This little excursion and the whole week showed again the astounding curiosity and capacity young children have for discovering and learning new things.

I am always humbled by the children's  enthusiasm and thrilled at the progress I can see every day.

As the parents are also life-long learners and the interest in German is very high, I would like to add this clip with names for sea animals.

Please note that it is too long for the children and that they have not learnt these words yet.

Dieses Video ist für die Eltern, viel Spass beim Lernen der deutschen Wörter für die Meerestiere.

Meeresbewohner für Kinder / Eltern

Please enjoy a happy Valentine's day and in Germany Karneval is in full swing - there is always so much to celebrate in February !

We danced to this Karneval song together with the friends from K1 and K2 and everyone had so much fun ! 

Karneval im Kindergarten

This picture also features a sibling of Pre–Kindergarten child and my German co–teacher Mr.Gerrit who we had to say goodbye to this week. We will miss him and wish him and his family all the best for their future adventures.

Ich wünsche Ihnen allen ein gutes und erlebnisreiches Wochenende !

With kind regards, mit freundlichen Grüßen, 

Anita Ursula Mönch

DSKI Pre-Kindergarten homeroom teacher 

Playgroup / EY GFL & Deutsch               German Saturday School homeroom teacher