Kindergarten concept and educational areas

Excellent learning environment for our little ones.

Our pedagogical concept:

  • The interests and needs of our children are the focus of the pedagogical team.
  • We promote stable educational and learning processes. The children should be able to develop and try things out in a trusting atmosphere.
  • Every family, every child is equally valued and accepted with its individual, social and cultural differences.
  • We see children as personalities who carry their development potential within themselves. We see our task as giving the children impulses, incentives and support so that they can develop knowledge, skills and abilities independently.
  • We take children seriously with all their questions and interests. We promote the learning of independence and personal responsibility, and motivate children to get involved, to express their opinions openly and to treat each other with respect.
  • Cooperation with parents is very important to us. We treat parents with respect and partnership, because they are the experts of their children.
  • Each family is taken seriously and supported with its individual interests, needs and special circumstances.

Our educational areas

Our work is based on the Thuringian educational plan. In addition to the basic educational principles, this plan contains seven educational areas, which we would like to present to you here using some examples from our kindergarten. The educational areas are interrelated and complement each other. The educational areas are not only reflected in individual pedagogical offers, but they are evident during all activities of the kindergarten's everyday life. 

1. linguistic and written language education

Reading is fun!

With our pedagogical offers, we work every day to ensure that children enjoy books, language, writing, and ultimately reading. With us, the children gain many positive experiences in dealing with books and writing in general, so that they develop their joy of (pre-)reading and their love of books. In this way, we ensure one of the most important basic prerequisites for a successful school career.

In our mixed-age groups, the educators carry out differentiated activities on a daily basis. In this way, all children continuously develop their language and literacy skills, even though they differ in their prior knowledge, language skills, or age.
Our free play activities also include written activities. In this way, even the youngest children deal with writing in an age-appropriate way and develop their first textual skills.
In preschool, the letters are introduced and the children learn to recognize the anlauts. This linguistic ability to abstract lays an important foundation for the acquisition of written language. In the process, children with extended knowledge are always adequately supported and challenged.
However, literacy also includes competencies such as the joy of reading, familiarity with books and media competence. In our kindergarten, it is especially about the interest in written language and the handling of books.

2. motor and health education

At the kindergarten, we attach great importance to maintaining and promoting the children's joy of movement. This is because children explore and understand their environment through motor actions. Whether it is making social contacts or building a tower.

Our outdoor area offers daily variety in promoting motor skills.
Coordinative skills are promoted in our large gymnasium. Through the joy of movement, skills such as climbing, jumping, balancing, throwing and catching are encouraged through play. In addition, children use it to further develop their sense of balance and learn to orient themselves in space. 
Particularly important is the development of fine motor skills while wielding painting and drawing tools

3. natural science and technical education

Children actively explore their environment and thus form their picture of the world. Through targeted pedagogical offers and suitable materials, we encourage the child's interest and conduct experiments with the children in the areas of physics, chemistry and biology.

The children can also discover the first static laws for themselves during free play. Reflection on this and further experimentation is supported by Teacher in order to further encourage the spirit of discovery. 

4. mathematical education

Before children can begin with arithmetic, they must develop an understanding of quantities. We support the children in this process through age-appropriate exercises
Sorting and classifying, ordering and knowing shapes, as well as counting and knowing numbers are precursor skills to arithmetic. Our educators fit this sequence into the pedagogical offerings in such a way that each child learns at his or her own level on a daily basis.

5. musical education

Music is one of a child's first social experiences. When a child hears music, he usually intuitively begins to move to the music. We encourage this musical interest of the children in the kindergarten.
We focus on the children's receptive and also productive musical abilities. Working with instruments and playing simple pieces of music together also promotes a sense of community, as the children need to listen to each other.

6. artistic education

Children feel the urge to create. This can happen in many different ways: They can sculpt with plasticine, create collages from stones, use finger paints or simply paint in the sand, to name just a few examples. The special thing about this is that children can communicate messages creatively that they would never be able to express verbally.
The joy of creating always comes first. We also encourage the children's creative skills and awaken their interest in art. This includes enabling them to form their own opinion about a work of art

7. socio-cultural, moral and ethical education

Sociality and culture are prerequisites for a child to develop a positive self-image of themselves and the world. The children experience their self-efficacy in the community and that their opinions, feelings and thoughts are heard and accepted by others. The exchange of thoughts and opinions in the group takes on an important role in this area of education and also conveys the basic idea of a democratic society in a playful way.

The children have the opportunity to participate in conversations. They can share their thoughts, feelings and opinions, but also listen to others. In doing so, the children learn to accept diverse opinions and can adopt other ways of thinking/perspectives.
As-if situations are practiced in role play. The children use this game to practice their own actions of recognized rituals and norms. They also playfully engage with the outside world by taking on roles like mom or dad.
The children get to know themselves and their own identity: Drawing faces, tracing body shapes, recognizing themselves in the mirror. Who am I? And how do I change over time?