Introduction/specifics

The Wilhelmshorst crèche is a small, family facility that is specially designed to meet the needs of small children. We make the transition from family to daycare very sensitive. The focus of adjustment and educational work is the bond between the child and the teacher. It is important to us that the children feel safe and emotionally comfortable in the facility. The building is at ground level and barrier-free to meet the needs of our children. The crèche was opened on March 1st, 2014. It offers space for 34 children aged 2 months to four years. The children are accompanied in everyday life by their reference teachers in two units - yellow and green. This group structure enables us to respond to the very individual and special needs of the youngest. With our educational and situational offers, we want to support the children in their development as best as possible. We focus on the needs, ideas and interests of the children. A good educational partnership between the parents and the educational staff is an important basis for the children to feel comfortable, safe and secure and to be able to develop freely. That is why mutual respect and trust between the educators and the parents is particularly important to us. As part of the cooperation, we work closely with the day-care centers in the municipality of Michendorf, in particular with the Ameisenhügel day-care center in Wilhelmshorst.

Rooms

The day care center is divided into two units - the yellow and green areas - each with a larger main room and a smaller side room.

In the yellow area there is a platform developed for toddlers with a slope and a staircase to create challenges in the children's busy everyday life and to enable a view of the room from above. The other child-friendly furnishings ensure space and space for movement, play and creativity. A cuddle and a reading corner, a doll's kitchen and an area for dressing up with mirrors are available for the children to discover and explore. Furniture suitable for small children allows the children to take part in meals in a relaxed manner and to become independent.

In the green area, the children will find various opportunities to pursue their interests in the rooms. In the construction and vehicle corner, dolls and cooking corner as well as in the creative area, the children will find materials and toys that promote the children's development, challenge them and support their curiosity and creativity.

Outdoor Facilities

The children can work independently on the outdoor area and look for challenges for themselves according to their level of development. The different surfaces made of sand, grass or pavement challenge the children to crawl or run. There is a large sandbox with a wooden border, a swing, a playhouse and a small slide on the site. Vehicles invite you to move and playfully imitate what you experience in your environment.

Enabling the children to have elementary experiences with water and sand was particularly important to us when designing the outdoor area. That's why we planned to add a mud track to the play area.

Walks in the vicinity and in the neighboring forest are an integral part of our educational work.

Daily Schedule

Our work should be transparent and predictable for the children through structure and repetition in the daily routine. Then the children have the opportunity to explore and develop healthily. It all depends on the beginning. No phase of life is as important and formative as the first 3 years of a child. If the child comes out of this phase strengthened and self-confident, it will be able to build on it for the rest of its life. Until the transition to kindergarten, our day care center should be a place where the children find a safe haven.

Basics

The Swiss psychologist Jean Piaget called this first phase of child development the "sensorimotor phase", since all experiences that a child has from birth to around the 20th month are sensory (perception) and motoric (movement). . The development of the child's personality (emotional, cognitive and social development as well as language development) takes place mainly through movement and perception processes, which we primarily support in our facility. If you look at the most important developmental tasks in the first three years of a child's life, the connection between them becomes clear:

• Build relationships that ensure survival - mother, father, other caregivers        
• enter into relationships with previously unknown adults in the transition to daycare
• develop a sleep-wake cycle
• eat independently
• learn to move and walk
• communicate with others, be able to communicate - learn to speak
• Getting to know and master your own body (e.g. controlling bodily excretions)

For these developmental tasks, the children need motor skills that require safe handling of the body and voluntary control of it. For example, language acquisition is embedded in the child's overall motor skills and takes place on the basis of learning to walk and grip and is made possible through motor skills (e.g. mouth and lip movements, breathing technique, muscle activity of the larynx). Finger and fine motor skills play a crucial role here. We want to strengthen three basic areas with the movement-oriented approach:

• Mental health through self-confidence and strengthening mental stability
• Physical health through strengthening the immune system, healthy nutrition and sufficient exercise
• Social health through bonding, recognition and community

The children have the opportunity to make their own movement experiences indoors and outdoors. Relaxation exercises and recovery phases as well as daily exercise in the fresh air are also part of our concept.