Pre-KG 2024/ 25 Blog 8 Fine Motor skills

 Pre-KG 2024/ 25 Blog 8

Fine Motor skills

We all might have heard about fine motor skills and are aware that they are important for a child’s development, but what are they and are they only important in childhood? 

Fine motor skills are the small, precise movements we make with our hands, fingers,  feet, toes and eyes.

For most people doing things like drawing a picture, inserting a straw or tying shoelaces seem like relatively easy tasks, but in fact these activities involve the complex coordination of our muscles and our brain. 

To be able to carry out these tasks, we have to develop and recognize the importance of fine motor skills in the early years, but improving them is a really important part of our development and continues into adulthood.

Many children’s songs cater to the fine motor skills development as they involve movement of hands, fingers and feet and they are a daily part of our Pre–Kindergarten curriculum. 

I love to sing with the children live in class and so do my coworkers, Ms.Priyanka and Mr.Derek, but if you are stuck for ideas, there are many songs performed by different educators and singers, which you can enjoy ! Just remember to limit screen time and discover your own lovely voice. 

The Eensy Weensy Spider

Head, Shoulders, Knees and Toes

Mit Fingerchen, mit Fingerchen

To accompany our singing in class, we decided to make shakers with recycled PET bottles as this task requires fine motor skills to pick up the colorful beads, to put the safety tapes around and of course they are so much fun to shake! 

The Pre–Kindergarten children did a great job and listened to the different sounds, realizing that the sound changes depending on the amount of beads inserted into the bottle.

What a valuable discovery ! 

Another wonderful activity to foster fine motor skills is playing with playdough. The children will use all of the muscles in their hands and fingers by kneading, pulling, stretching, rolling, cutting and constantly forming the dough.

Some children can engage for hours and there is a great fun factor as well when you discover that your creations have the shape of a pizza, cookies or icecream ! 

There are many other activities that involve fine motor skills like stringing, picking up small pieces of paper to glue into a piece of art , inserting a car into the Autobahn tube to watch it race down or let a bottle float. 

But of course there are a lot of outdoor activities as well to support these skills.

Making sand cakes with friends involves holding a shovel, scooping and pouring into a form and it requires good hand–eye coordination which is also necessary for drawing.

Learning can be so much fun and it is amazing how skillful the children are becoming in the course. Triangle bubble wands might bring a bit of magic into the play and surely provide a lot of laughter and joy.

Whatever activity you do with your child to support their fine motor skills, you will be amazed at the progress and at the wonderful opportunities for bonding and sharing. 

Viel Spaß mit Liedern und alten und neuen Aktivitäten zur Förderung der Feinmotorik! 

Wishing you a delightful weekend ! 

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 7 Shaping up to the Oktoberfest

Pre-KG 2024/ 25 Blog 7 

Shaping up to the Oktoberfest 

The week before the Oktoberfest is always very exciting at our school.

DSKI being a school with a German background, the children get to learn something about the traditions surrounding this festival.

Oktoberfest

The Oktoberfest actually started as festivities held in honor of the wedding between Prinz Ludwig von Bayern and Prinzessin Therese von Sachsen–Hildburghausen and it is now the biggest festival in the world. 

Viele Menschen kennen die Geschichte des Ursprungs des Oktoberfests, aber auch für kleine Kinder ist es immer wieder faszinierend zu hören, dass es eigentlich alles mit der Hochzeit eines echten Prinzen und einer echten Prinzessin begann. Mittlerweile ist das Oktoberfest nicht nur aus dem Terminplan der Münchner, sondern auch dem Rest der Welt nicht mehr wegzudenken. Was viele allerdings nicht wissen ist, dass es damals auch ein Pferderennen gab und das haben unsere Kinder und die Freunde vom K1 im Deutsch Unterricht auf unseren Pferden gerne nachgespielt. 

Die Geschichte des Oktoberfests

The Pre–Kindergarten children helped with making some of the decorations by twisting white or light blue paper strips into loops and stringing them together with some cellotape. 

K2 made more of the garlandes during their German lesson as part of their unit on materials.

The Pre–Kindergarten children also listened to some German brass band music and tried out a variety of shakers to move along to the music. 

Throughout the week the Pre–Kindergarten children continued to learn about shapes and they have become very knowledgeable.

Last week they printed the banner for the Tombola team with „diamond“ shaped sponges and some of the children could remember this difficult word ! 

The children also used a variety of shapes to make robots, trains or anything they liked. 

Additionally the children created original pictures by using colourful circles, featuring a subject of their choice. The little artworks looked really fantastic ! 

Finally, the Pre–Kindergarten children experienced the first joys of autumn when harvesting sweet potatoes together with the other EY classes. They dug and pulled and were so proud of their harvest ! 

We will use these potatoes to make some dish in the future, but we had already one of our chefs making potato soup ! 

In the meanwhile we are all looking forward to our DSKI Oktoberfest with lots of delicious food, fun games, great Tombola prizes, good music and blue skies ! 

Viel Spaß auf unserem hauseigenen DSKI Oktoberfest mit vielen Attraktionen und einer Vorführung der Pre–Kindergarten Kinder mit ihren Freunden von K1und K2 und allen EY Lehrern ! 

Körperteilblues

With kind regards, mit herzlichen Grüßen, 

Anita Ursula Mönch 

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

German Saturday School homeroom teacher