Introduction/specifics

We are an open concept kindergarten with a total of 75 places for children aged 1-6 years.
Our kindergarten is located in the district of Brendlorenzen under one roof with the municipal after-school care center and in direct connection to the elementary school with gymnasium.

Rooms

For us, the focus is on the “competent child” equipped with a wide range of skills and dispositions. We trust in the child's will to develop and have confidence in them. Within the scope of our facility's possibilities, we want to provide the children with a wide repertoire of experiences. Our task is to provide them with all the organizational, temporal and spatial support they need. To this end, we have a well thought-out educational room concept that provides educational rooms with specific areas to which the children can assign themselves independently:

- restaurant
- studio
- movement room
- role play room
- wood workshop
- building and construction room
- library
- Zwergenland, a safe retreat for our youngest children

The starting point for the choice of materials and the type of activities offered in the education rooms is the realization that the children can work independently and actively.

Outdoor Facilities

Our kindergarten playground is nestled in a quiet, sheltered area between the kindergarten and after-school care building and the school building. It offers the children many opportunities to move, explore and play. Adjacent to this is the elementary school's hard court and playground, which also offer many opportunities for exercise.

We make use of the adjacent school gymnasium for targeted exercise activities. This enables initial contact with the school and the after-school care center.

Daily Schedule

7.00-8.00 a.m.: Early service

8.00-10.00 a.m.: Breakfast buffet

8.00-12.00: Free play time/ specific activities/ project work/ outdoor activities

11.20 a.m.: Color blob meeting (discussion time in small groups)

12.00-13.30: Lunch in 2 groups

Afternoon: flexible afternoon nap/ free play/ targeted activities/ project work/ outdoor activities

14.30: Snack

16.00-17.00: Late service

Food

To ensure that the vitamins, minerals and trace elements are not neglected, we make sure that the second breakfast here at our facility consists of the healthiest foods possible, e.g. wholemeal bread or spelt rolls, fruit and vegetables, yoghurt, milk, muesli, sausage and cheese, honey and jam. The children have the opportunity to help themselves and choose what and when they want to eat.

At lunchtime there is a home-cooked hot meal. The children are involved in putting together the menu and preparing the food, for example peeling potatoes, making pesto and chopping vegetables.

In the afternoon, the children can enjoy a snack.

Water is available to the children throughout the day. We also serve juice spritzer or tea with lunch.

The cost of meals is 4.00 euros per day. Plus 5.00 euros per month for drinks.

Basics

Our educational work focuses on the child with all their previous experiences and development opportunities. Building a trusting relationship with the children is the starting point in our facility in order to give the children reliability and security. This is the basic prerequisite for children to be able to explore their world and develop their skills.

A trusting and open cooperation between parents and teachers forms the foundation of a good partnership and plays a decisive role. During an admission interview at the start of kindergarten, we gather initial information about the child's preferences and habits.

In addition, we engage attentively and actively with the children, for example when they arrive, at mealtimes, when changing nappies or during free play. Through the individual experience of the child or within small groups and the group as a whole, we educational professionals learn about their preferences, interests and moods. Above all, however, we get to know the child's individual expressions and personality traits.

Through regular, targeted and written observations and documentation, we gain knowledge about the behavioral characteristics and needs of the children. This enables us to respond to these in a targeted manner.
These observations are shared between us educators in weekly team meetings. Other topics include reflecting on our working methods, equipping the rooms and adapting the materials.

Cooperations

During the kindergarten year, joint activities are planned and carried out together. These include the annual St. Martin's Day parade, visits to the theater and festivals.
All municipal kindergartens also meet in the network for joint exchanges and further training. This is how we learn from and with each other.

Teamwork with school

Constructive cooperation between the teachers, the kindergarten team and the parents is a prerequisite for successful preparation for school.

The following activities are an integral part of our cooperation:

• At the beginning of the kindergarten year, an information event is held in the kindergarten with a teacher for the parents of the pre-school children.
• Joint activities, such as getting to know the school building, hikes, visits to lessons and much more.
• Exchange of media and learning materials
• Vorkurs Deutsch for all children who need additional support in learning the German language
• Joint discussions in the event of questions about school enrolment, e.g. deferral or early enrolment

Teamwork with parents

We understand educational partnership to mean close cooperation between parents and educational staff for the benefit of the child.

Based on a regular mutual exchange, there are various occasions for discussions in which parents receive advice and support on educational issues.
- Admission interview
- Familiarization talks
- Transition talks
- Development talks
- Door-to-door talks

Parents receive up-to-date information via:
- Kikom app
- regular letters to parents
- notices in the entrance area
- the parent information wall in the hallway

Families gain a wide range of insights into the educational work at joint parties and celebrations, parent-child activities and information events, e.g:
- for new parents,
- about the organization of preschool work
- pedagogical topics

Parents are also given opportunities to participate in the educational work, e.g. through the parents' council, in projects, by observing and helping to organize family celebrations.

Specifics

By treating the children with empathy in an appreciative environment, we want to give their innate learning strategies such as imitation, repetition and variation room to develop.

In project work, we create the framework for the children to engage intensively with materials and topics. The topics are based on the children's current interests or the rhythm of the year. A project can accompany the children for several days, weeks or months. It is important to us that the children themselves determine their learning experiences and the depth of experience within a topic. We stimulate and encourage exploration. This inevitably means that not all children take part in all the activities on a particular topic.

We attach great importance to the self-education aspect, as children learn almost exclusively through their own experience in the first six years of life. The child's own experience makes it comprehensible and thus supports learning and consolidates the content. In this elementary development phase, we focus on learning together as a team. Educational processes take place in dialog and thrive on social interaction. They are nourished by acting, playing, producing and thinking together. This gives us educational professionals the important role of “co-constructors” who are themselves involved in the educational processes.
In addition, the children meet once a day with their caregivers in small groups to talk, plan and carry out projects.