Introduction/specifics

"Take a child by the hand and let them lead you.

Look at the stones they pick up and listen to what they tell you.

As a reward, they will show you a world you have long forgotten."

The daycare center is located in the Bonlanden district, Schubertweg 7, and extends over four floors.

This is the

• largest childcare facility in the city of Filderstadt
• offering a wide range of bookable childcare hours between 7:00 a.m. and 2:30 p.m.
• It can accommodate 145 children from 6 weeks old to the end of 4th grade, from diverse national and cultural backgrounds.
• 20 children from 1 to 3 years old in the nursery
• 90 children from 3 years old until they start school in the kindergarten
• 35 children from 1st to 4th grade in the after-school program

Basics

The Schubertweg daycare center extends over four floors.

In our facility, we operate according to an open concept, meaning that each child is given their own time to independently explore their environment, pursue their own interests, and develop their skills. This is supported by dedicated learning areas in the form of activity rooms. This allows children to find more focused concentration in one activity without being distracted by other areas. Each child can observe, experiment, delve deeper, reflect, and independently gather experiences at their own pace, continuously learning along the way. Even boredom and daydreaming are part of this process, as children use this time to reflect on their experiences and events. The open area for children aged 3-16 is separate from the open area for children under 3 and the after-school care children.

A childcare facility has a mandate to provide care in addition to its educational mandate. Here is a brief definition of care:

• Warmth, food, protection from danger – all that children need to satisfy their physical needs.
• Reliable care from adults.
• Stimulus to open children's access to the world and to themselves.
• The willingness of adults to engage with children within the framework of mutual respect and to be available to them as a secure foundation for their learning processes.
• Allowing, encouraging, and nurturing attachments.
• Ensuring the fundamental physical and emotional conditions for children's active learning processes, for which goals are set through education.

Education means the support, guidance, stimulation, and challenge of self-directed learning processes by parents and educational professionals. This means that educational processes require reliable relationships and bonds with adults.

The professionals address the following questions: What suggestions, challenges, support and guidance do we need to give children on their path to education or in self-education processes?

Education refers to the self-directed process of every individual from birth. Education arises through self-directed learning processes. Education is a lifelong process and solely the child's own activity. It is based on the child's self-directed activities aimed at understanding the world.

Self-education is therefore the child's own drive for their own development.

Self-education means:

1. Attachment and relationship between educator and child
2. Attachment and relationship between children
3. Stimulating materials, open projects and activities
4. Daily routine with freedom, rules
5. Stimulating environment – ​​learning space

The new chapter in life that begins with starting at the Schubertweg daycare center brings a host of new impressions and changes for parents and, above all, for each child: The child will explore new paths, engage with new spaces, become familiar with unfamiliar daily routines and habits, meet many new children, and encounter adults who are initially strangers. For every child, these many new steps are significant events. They will be curious, excited, uncertain, and perhaps even a little anxious.

To ensure a successful start for the child and a sense of well-being in the facility, they need support, guidance, and sensitive protection from us adults. Together with the parents as our partners in their child's upbringing, we aim to provide supportive guidance to every child during this initial phase.

Therefore, all children begin their time at the facility with a so-called "settling-in period" to specifically ease their transition from the familiar home environment to the still unfamiliar world of the childcare center.

The settling-in process from the nursery to the kindergarten takes place within the facility itself.

The Schubertweg daycare center uses the "Filderstadt Settling-In Model" to help children settle in.

News

Daily Routine for Children Aged 3-6:

When our daycare center opens at 7:00 a.m., the early morning care begins for the children and staff with free play time in the "Construction Cave" learning room and the bistro. Children deemed capable and able may, if interested, play in all the learning rooms, sometimes without a staff member present.

From 7:00 a.m. to 9:00 a.m., a reception takes place in the hallway, where each child is greeted and checked off on the attendance list. The staff member on duty also handles all information and phone calls from parents.

The learning spaces are open to the children from approximately 8:00 a.m. These spaces, along with the outdoor area, are available to all children throughout the entire free play period.

To ensure sufficient time for free play, children should arrive at the kindergarten no later than 9:00 a.m. After being greeted at reception, the children are free to choose their play area, activity, and playmate. Alternatively, children can choose to play alone in the various play areas, depending on their needs, and determine how long they spend playing.

Once a week, a meeting is held for the age-appropriate small groups. Here, all children have the opportunity to share their experiences and stories from the day with their peers. Various activities also take place during this meeting.

In the various learning spaces, children playfully acquire a wide range of skills and abilities. They also gain diverse social experiences through constant interaction with other playmates.

Free play offers each child the opportunity to process their experiences, impressions, fears, and sadness through play.

Within free play, there are always opportunities to participate in open and structured project activities.

As a childcare facility, we have an independent educational mandate in addition to our childcare responsibilities. Fostering the personality development of each child is of paramount importance to us.

We systematically observe and document each child's development in order to provide effective support. To accurately assess each child, we observe their behavior in their actions, play, movement, language, and so on. The project offerings mentioned above are developed based on the evaluation of these observations.

Free play time ends around 11:30 a.m. for the first lunch group. Afterwards, the children tidy up the learning spaces together. Each child tidies up their own play area, the one where they last played. As part of their social development, the children are encouraged to help each other with tidying up. Unfinished and completed projects can be left as they are and can be labeled by the children with their name tags to show appreciation for their play.

Lunch for the children takes place between 11:30 a.m. and 2:00 p.m. (in three groups). Free play continues for the other children.

The after-school care children eat in two groups, depending on when they finish school.

From 12:00 p.m. to approximately 1:30 p.m., there is a quiet time at the daycare center.

Each child chooses a learning space. Children who are tired have the opportunity to rest in the "slumberland" area.

Daily Routine at the Daycare Center (Ages 0-3):

Children arrive at the daycare center from 7:00 a.m. and can have a snack until 9:30 a.m. All rooms are also available for free play.

Afterwards, free play continues indoors and in the garden.

The daily morning circle takes place before lunch.

Lunch is served from 11:15 a.m.

The children's naps are adapted to their individual sleep rhythms. This means that the children are put down for a nap when they are tired.

Free play and pick-up time are until 2:30 p.m.

Fruit is offered daily for the afternoon snack.

Daily Routine for After-School Care Children, Grades 1-4:

Lunch takes place when the school children arrive home from school.

After lunch, the after-school care children do their homework.

Free play is until 2:30 p.m.

Free Play

"Dear Parents,

If your child comes home and reports that they learned a lot today, be cautious, because the child may have learned very little.

However, if they come home and report that they played well today, then you can be very pleased, because the child most likely learned a great deal."

-Zoltan Kodaly-

-Excerpt from the Baden-Württemberg Orientation Plan for Education and Upbringing in Kindergartens-

The kindergarten offers children numerous opportunities to play and learn. Through play, children engage with their environment in their own unique way exploring and understanding it, and connecting these insights to their previous experiences.

Through this type of activity, each child goes through the most important learning and developmental processes of early childhood.

Excursions and Trips

Excursions in a small group are always special. These trips are independent of age and season and are based entirely on the children's interests. The children themselves decide, based on their interests, when and which excursions they would like to participate in.

In the nursery, excursions are tailored to the children's development and interests.

In the after-school program, excursions are also based on the children's interests and adapted to the school day.

A key approach is direct, on-site experience. We don't want to create artificial learning situations in the daycare center to introduce children to a project topic. For example, if the topic of "firefighters" were covered without a visit to the fire station, the essential experiences would be missing. Songs, stories, and picture books serve to deepen and process these experiences and should be used accordingly. For us, this means specifically addressing the children holistically on an emotional level.

We take care to adjust the group size for excursions to the number of interested children (e.g., if many younger children are interested, the group size will be significantly smaller than if many older children are present), so that each child can receive individual attention. However, safety is a top priority when determining group size (it must be guaranteed at all times). Therefore, the group size for excursions and field trips must not exceed a certain number of children.

On field trips, the journey is more important than the destination. Therefore, it's quite possible that we might find ourselves near the daycare center during this time because we're interested in the construction site (or something similar).

Nature Days

Nature days are held in spring (2 days), summer (one week) and autumn (2 days) for all age groups.