Pre-KG Blog 26 17.Mar.2021 Books galore @ DSKI book week !

Pre-KG Blog 26  17.Mar. 2021

Books galore @ DSKI book week !

The Pre-Kindergarten children love to look at books and listen to stories, so the excitement was great when we told them that 3 days would be devoted to one of their favourite things to do.

During the next 3 days the children brought MANY of their favourite books in a variety of languages. 

On Monday, the school community was encouraged to come in their country’s costume and we had some nicely dressed children, parents and teachers.

Daiyo’s mum brought her sweet baby daughter and wore a beautiful Kimono. She started the book week with a Japanese story / Kamishibai about a rice ball (“O-musubi Kun”). 

Afterwards teacher Anita read “Jan im Zoo” in German and the children enjoyed both stories a lot.

On Tuesday, Yanchen’s mum recited a famous Chinese poem and while we were all in pyjamas, we tried to repeat the verses (difficult for the adults, but the children were great!). 

We then listened to Lucas’ dad who read “The Colour Monster”, also in Chinese!  Everyone was fascinated by the language and the colourful pictures.

Khai Minh’s mum came in on Wednesday and read us books in 2 languages, first the “Little Owl” in English and then a charming book in Vietnamese about different eggs and their content.

Khai Minh and his mum were dressed like cute owls which made reading the book together even more special.

Later in the day, Tamaki’s mum kindly helped with the Instagram booth and read some of the children's many favourite books. 

We also celebrated Tamaki’s 3rd birthday with some delicious Baumkuchen !

The book week highlighted the importance of reading to / with your child and the joy they get from reading together. 

It also showed that the language of books is universal and you do not always have to understand the exact words to enjoy an exciting or charming picture book ! 

Thanks a lot to all the parents, teachers and the children who made this event so successful !

Enjoy reading with your child in the holidays and whenever you can !

Kindergarten Blog, Mar. 17: Museum of Me and Culture Week

Spring break is here!

The students had the opportunity to showcase their work throughout this unit in their mini-museum. They curated all the things that they created and shared them with their friends. It was fun learning not just about ourselves but also about others!

(You can check out this link for a glimpse of the Blue Team's museum.)

We also learned a lot this week about different cultures and our favorite books! Thank you to the parents who volunteered to teach us and to share their culture with us. 

It was a short but meaningful week for everyone.

Have a wonderful Spring break!

Your Kindergarten teachers, 

Pam and Azusa

Pre-KG Blog 25 Inquisitive Minds !

Pre-KG Blog 25  12.Mar.2021

Inquisitive minds

The Pre-KG children had a very busy week inquiring deeper into their unit.

Note: Due to the injury on my right hand since almost 2 weeks this blog is still a work in progress as it takes a while to type, drag, paste and copy with the left hand.

I hope you enjoy the O-hinasama blog for last week which I put up on Friday !

Thank you and stay tuned !

Kindergarten Blog, Mar.12 : Springtime is Here!

It’s almost the last stretch of our inquiry on our Who We Are unit. To help the students synthesize everything they’ve learned, we’ve started collating the materials that they will use for their Museum of Me. 

Before we set up our own museum, the students visited the Fashion Museum to help them plan out how their space will look like. We saw the exhibition of the Swiss authors Felix Hoffman, Hans Fisher, and Ernst Kreidorf. The children enjoyed looking the beautiful pictures and stories like The Wolf and the Seven Young Kids or The Town Musicians of Bremen.

Spring is also in the air — which is the perfect time to inquire on our Sharing the Planet unit!

This week, the blue team made the spring tree together. This is our 3rd tree for the unit Sharing the Planet. Please look at how the spring tree and the tulips grew.

The yellow team went on a spring scavenger hunt, and searched for items that you can find during springtime. They found flower buds, seedlings, and different colored flowers on our walk. 

The yellow team also continued working on their alphabet book art, and focused on letters  T and P this week. 

Next week, we will be celebrating Book and Culture Week at DSKI, and we’re all very excited to see the chlidren in costume, and to learn from the parents about their country’s culture! Please see the schedule below for the details of next week's festivities:

Monday, March 15

• Book Reading / Sharing of Tradition - 1 parent volunteer per class will be invited to either read a book or to share a tradition (art, dance, song, etc.) from their home country with the students.  

• D.E.A.R (Drop Everything and Read) - From 9:00 - 9:15 am, all members of the school community will read a book in their classroom.

• Spirit Week (National Dress) - wear the clothes from your country and bring your favorite book from your country (or a printout of the cover).

• Match the Book Launching! Which teacher likes which book? Take a guess!

Tuesday, March 16

• Book Reading / Sharing of Tradition - 1 parent volunteer per class will be invited to either read a book or to share a tradition (art, dance, song, etc.) from their home country with the students. 

• D.E.A.R - From 9:00 - 9:15, all members of the school community will read a book in their classroom.

• Spirit Week (Pajama Party) - Bring your favorite book and come to school in your pajamas!

• Instagram (Photo Booth) - students can pose and have their photos taken in the first-floor sitting area. The Kindergarten (blue team and yellow team) students will visit this photo booth on this day, and they will be asked to bring a copy of their favorite book to school for their photos. 

Wednesday, March 17

• Book Reading / Sharing of Tradition - 1 parent volunteer per class will be invited to either read a book or to share a tradition (art, dance, song, etc.) from their home country with the students. 

• D.E.A.R - From 9:00 - 9:15, all members of the school community will read a book in their classroom.

• Spirit Week (Character dress-up day) - Come to school dressed as your favorite book character.

• Instagram (Photo Booth) - students can pose and have their photos taken in the first-floor sitting area. The Pre-kindergarten students will visit this photo booth on this day, and they will be asked to bring a copy of their favorite book to school for their photos. 

• Match the Book Revelation! - The answers to Monday's contest will be revealed!

Have a wonderful weekend, everyone.

Your Kindergarten teachers, 

Pam and Azusa

Pre-KG Blog 24 In the spirit of O-Hinasama

Pre-KG Blog 24  05.Mar. 2021

In the spirit of O-Hinasama

Our school, DSKI, is located in Japan which is rich in many enchanting traditions! 

One of them is O-Hinamatsuri, also called Girls’ or Dolls’ Festival which dates back to the Heian period.

Girls are given a set of dolls, O-Hinasama,  representing the emperor and empress and their court while families pray for their health and happiness, hoping also that their daughters would become kind, strong and courteous.

Well, in Pre-KG the festival and the songs are also popular with the boys and as all of our children show the trait of being of caring, what better way to celebrate than to make a pair of origami Hina dolls ?

After talking about the event in our morning circle, the children chose origami paper for their dolls’ kimonos and happily started crafting. 

While the children concentrated well and showed great skill at folding and drawing faces, they sometimes took a little break and worked on their unit subjects by looking for animals they like and then talked about them.

In the end, all of the Origami Hina dolls were finished and looked adorable!

To see the real thing, we also made an excursion to the nearby Sheraton Hotel where a full set of beautiful Hina dolls was on display, much to the amazement of our Pre-KG children.

While craft took the spotlight this week, the Pre-KG children continued to demonstrate that they are learning to cooperate better with their classmates, to share favourite toys and games and to support friends who do not yet understand so well and need help.

Right in the spirit of O-Hinasama, the Pre-Kindergarten children showed that they are kind, strong and courteous indeed !

Note:

If you are interested in O-Hina dolls, there is an exhibition of special, handcrafted dolls with a maritime theme by master doll maker, Ms. Yukako Goto at the Kobe Maritime Museum near Kobe Harbourland until 14.March 2021