Pre-KG Blog 16 Es weihnachtet sehr ! It feels very christmassy !

Pre-KG Blog 16  

It feels very christmassy! Es weihnachtet sehr ! 

In the last week before the school holidays the Pre-KG class was buzzing with more activity than ever !

The weather had suddenly turned cold, but the children were full of energy and took walks under bright, blue skies, checking out the tulip field and enjoying the fallen leaves of autumn.

The children also enthusiastically finished the presents for their parents and put them carefully in decorated bags. 

A lot of German Christmas songs were sung and the nativity scene (Krippe) was a great hit! The children set up the “Krippe” many times, talking excitedly about the new baby arriving soon. 

This year the Pre-KG children were also celebrating the arrival of their “own” little Christmas baby, as Daiyo’s sister was born right on the last day of school!

Heartfelt congratulations to the family ! 

And then on the last day of school, Santa Claus came to our class! Santa had been in contact with the homeroom teacher, so he knew the perfect gift for inquisitive minds!

After a little reluctance, the Pre-KG children went to receive their presents and told Santa that they have been really good.

And truly, the Pre-KG children have been a joyful class, a pleasure to teach and they have become good friends already. 

Thank you also to the parents for their kindness and guidance.

Merry Christmas and happy holidays to all our Pre-KG families! 

Frohe Weihnachten und schöne Ferien !

May you all stay safe and healthy ! See you in 2021! 

Kindergarten 18 Dec. 2020

This will be the last blog for this year.

The Blue Team children made a nice table lantern for home. Please enjoy the lantern during the Christmas holiday. 

We have new friend in Unicorn room, Walter Smith. Please welcome him and his family.

I wish you all a beautiful Christmas holiday and see you in January with big smiles again!   Azusa

This morning, the Yellow Team class had a very unusual visitor, the Grinch! As the Grinch messed up our Christmas decorations and ran around being a nuisance, the children showed incredible kindness, offering him toys and inviting him to play with them. Perhaps they helped his heart to grow bigger.

After the Grinch had gone, Mia deduced that he must have been one of the teachers because she had seen part of his wrist and it wasn't green. She narrowed it down to two teachers based on the Grinch's height. Other children said it could not have been Mr. Benjamin because he's too tall. The Yellow Team truly are a clever bunch of students.

Of course, our class also had another visitor, a very welcome one: Santa Claus! The children were so happy to talk to him and receive their presents.

All this week, Yellow Team worked hard on Christmas cards to give to their parents. They put a lot of care and effort into their cards. Merry Christmas and Happy New Year, everyone!

Kindergarten Dec. 11, 2020

 This week we went to help the Rokko Island Community to plan the tulip bulbs.Next year in Spring we will go back to the field to see the beautiful flowers!

Blue Team tried a new technique of art for the unit "How we express ourselves" through art. It is called a "scratch picture" which has 4 steps to be finished and looks like on the photo. Children were very patient to finish the picture. 

Also, here's a group picture of Blue Team in front of the Christmas tree:

The Yellow Team students also really enjoyed planting tulip bulbs with the Rokko Island Community Center. Some of the children have been looking forward to this event ever since summer, when they asked where last year's tulips had gone. As they watch the tulips slowly start growing at the end of winter, they will hopefully make a connection between the seasons and the types of plants we can see.

Next week will be my (Anne) final week at DSKI. Yellow Team parents, it has truly been a joy working with your children this term. Please give a warm welcome to your child's new homeroom teacher, Pam, in January. She is very excited to meet you all and to take on the responsibility of teaching this wonderful group of students.

Pre-KG Blog 15 The Rainbow Fish and the Tulip Field

Pre-KG Blog 15 

The Rainbow Fish and the Tulip Field

Just in time for our unit of “Colours and Shapes” and right in the spirit of the Christmas season where we highlight caring and sharing (we do it all year round, so that’s why I say highlight!), the wonderful exhibition “The Rainbow Fish” opened at the nearby Fashion Museum.

The Pre-KG children had learnt about the story and its message and were very eager to see the Rainbow Fish drawings. 

At the museum they were surprised by an exciting 3D mapping room where parts of the story where projected onto the walls and some moving pictures which made the teachers a bit dizzy.

The children shouted in joy and found familiar characters here and there “Octopus, Rainbow fish, sparkles!”. After a little reminder that we were in a museum the children calmly looked at the rest of the expo and found out that Mr. Pfister actually had drawn many colourful paintings of animals other than fish.

At the end the children got to chose one book for their unit and decided that “Goodnight, little Rainbow Fish” was the best.

Back in the classroom, the children eagerly drew their own versions of the rainbow fish and some Pre-KG friends read the new book together. The colouring, cutting, pasting and creation of a beautiful collage kept the class busy for the rest of the week.

As some of the Pre-KG children attend class every day, they had an interesting excursion on Tuesday with the Blue Team friends of KG to the nearby Rokko Island community field. 

The children are learning about life cycles and therefore the planting of tulip bulbs which turn into beautiful flowers of many colours in spring, helps them to understand the wonders of nature.

What a colourful week the Pre-KG had where again they learnt a lot of new things!

Pre-KG Blog 14 Advent und St. Nikolaus

Pre-KG 

Advent und St. Nikolaus

Advent are the four weeks until Christmas which include the celebration of St.Nikolaus. This time is also called “Vorweihnachtszeit” in German and conjures up images of beautifully decorated homes with a sparkling Christmas tree, cozy times by the fire place, delicious smells of freshly baked cookies or gingerbread and making nice gifts for your loved ones.

At DSKI we usually bake with the children during this season, but because of Corona precautions we compromised by using lovely Japanese kaminendo (paper clay) to make ornaments in star and bell shapes as presents. (The children want to keep this a secret, so please don’t ask them about it.)

We also talked about another caring and sharing saint (who follows right after St.Martin) who is called St.Nikolaus. He helped many people by distributing his wealth to the needy and lived a long, long time ago - way before people knew about Santa Claus.

So the Pre-KG children made some unique and cute St.Nikolaus figurines (using recycled Yakult bottles, red paper, red felt triangles and wooden circles), put them on our beautifully decorated table and waited for St.Nikolaus.

And then, to their great joy, after the festive lighting of the school's Christmas tree and listening to beautiful songs by the school choir, the Pre-KG children were rewarded with delicious mikan and chocolates. 

Thank you so much, St.Nikolaus and his PTA helpers !

The treats were well deserved, because the Pre-Kindergarten children have done a lot of sharing and caring recently, with friends of different grades and even the PTA!

Einen frohen Nikolaustag, alle zusammen !