Kindergarten concept and educational areas

Excellent learning environment for our little ones.

Our pedagogical concept:

  • The educational team focuses on the interests and needs of our children.
  • We promote stable educational and learning processes. The children should be able to develop and try things out in an atmosphere of trust.
  • Every family and every child, with their individual, social and cultural differences, is equally valued and accepted.
  • We see children as personalities who have the potential to develop. We see it as our task to provide the children with stimuli, incentives and support so that they can develop knowledge, skills and abilities independently.
  • We take children and all their questions and interests seriously. We encourage children to learn independence and personal responsibility and motivate them to get involved, express their opinions openly and treat each other with respect.
  • Cooperation with parents is very important to us. We treat parents with respect and in a spirit of partnership, because they are the experts on their children.
  • Each family's individual interests, needs and special circumstances are taken seriously and supported.

Our educational areas

Our work is based on the Thuringian education plan. In addition to the educational principles, this includes seven educational areas, which we would like to present to you here using a few examples from our kindergarten. The educational areas overlap and complement each other. The educational areas are not only reflected in individual educational activities, but are also evident in all the activities of everyday kindergarten life. 

1. language and literacy education

Reading is fun!

We work daily with our educational programs to ensure that children enjoy books, language, writing and, ultimately, reading. The children gain many positive experiences with books and writing in general, so that they develop a love of reading and reading aloud. In this way, we ensure one of the most important basic requirements for a successful school career.

In our mixed-age groups, the teachers offer differentiated activities on a daily basis. In this way, all children continuously develop their language and literacy skills, even though they differ in their previous knowledge, language skills or age.
Our free play also includes written activities. This allows even the youngest children to engage with writing in an age-appropriate way and develop their first text skills.
In preschool, letters are introduced and children learn to recognize the sounds. This linguistic abstraction ability lays an important foundation for the acquisition of written language. Children with extended knowledge are always adequately supported and challenged.
Literacy also includes skills such as a love of reading, familiarity with books and media literacy. In our kindergarten, it is particularly about an interest in written language and dealing with books.

2. motor and health education

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

Our outdoor area offers daily variety in the development of motor skills.
Coordination skills are promoted in our large sports hall. The joy of movement playfully promotes skills such as climbing, jumping, balancing, throwing and catching. Children also develop their sense of balance and learn to orient themselves in space. 
Particularly important is the development of fine motor skills when using painting and drawing tools

3. science and technology education

Children actively explore their environment and thus form their own picture of the world. Through targeted educational activities and suitable materials, we encourage children's interest and carry out experiments with them in the fields 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 the Teacher in order to further encourage the spirit of discovery. 

4. mathematical education

Before children can start calculating, they need to develop an understanding of quantities. We support the children in this process with age-appropriate exercises
Sorting and classifying, arranging and recognizing shapes as well as counting and number skills are precursors to arithmetic. Our teachers integrate this sequence into the educational activities in such a way that each child learns at their own level on a daily basis.

5. musical education

Music is one of a child's first social experiences. When a child hears music, it usually intuitively begins to move to the music. We encourage this musical interest in children at kindergarten.
We focus on the children's receptive and productive musical skills. Using instruments and playing simple pieces of music together also promotes a sense of community, as the children have 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 the 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 plays an important role in this area of education and also playfully conveys the basic idea of a democratic society.

The children have the opportunity to take part in conversations with us. They can share their thoughts, feelings and opinions, but also listen to others. In doing so, the children learn to accept a variety of opinions and can adopt different ways of thinking/perspectives.
As-if situations are practiced in role play. The children use this game to practice their own actions in recognized rituals and norms. They also playfully engage with the outside world by taking on roles such as 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 the course of time?
To the video about our kindergarten...