With all the senses –
The kindergarten as a systemic and inclusive Living and experience environment
– One excerpt –
Character of the Kita
World of the Senses – The kindergarten as a systemic and inclusive living and experience environment.
Senses are the basis and engine of life.
Tell me and I will forget,
show me and I will remember,
Let me do and I understand.
Confucius
As our task, we see it as empowering all the children entrusted to us to perceive and shape their environment with all their senses - regardless of status, religion, origin or disabilities. Through attitude, example, attention to the development-specific conditions, individual biography and the resulting needs, we want to promote the children's competencies and strengthen and define their self-concept. We work systematically and inclusively - we see the "whole system" and include everyone and everything in our work as much as possible.
carrier image
Die Kinderwelt e.V. is a parent-initiated kindergarten and a registered association. This means that educators and parents work closely together. Parents have many rights to participate and commit to working a certain number of hours in the kindergarten. The board consists of four elected parents.
Composition of Kinderwelt e.V.
We have room in our Kinderwelt for 43 children. In two groups, the Sternenkucker and the Fühlwürmer, about 15 children between the ages of one and about four years are cared for. The third group, the Spürnasen, is largely age-homogeneous and prepares the children from about four years old for school.
Our goal is to experience the world with all the senses. We welcome different languages, nationalities and personalities.
Parents as partners
When the contract is concluded, the parents commit themselves to six parental hours each per parent and school year. This gives all parents the opportunity to actively participate in kindergarten daily life. Cooperation with the parents is strengthened by parent evenings, parent cafés, development conversations, notices and (anonymous) surveys. Information, observations or documentation are stored securely in accordance with data protection regulations and made available to the parents at any time. This allows them to actively participate in the development of the kindergarten.
A board of directors is elected from the ranks of the parents, who are committed to representing our daycare center externally.
Through a variety of materials and everyday impressions, we encourage the development of children. Rules and structures provide children with the framework to experience themselves with joy and fun. The rhythm and structures create rituals that they recognize. This reveals to them greater freedom for mental and physical development.
⦁ We educators
The ten-member team of educators consists of diploma social educators, diploma early childhood educators, social workers, teachers and state-recognized educators. We train an educator on the job. In addition, our facility has three integration specialists.
We educators see each child as an independent individual with their own desires, feelings, feelings and family stories. We work consistently but respectfully with the children so that they acquire important social characteristics. The children learn to carry out conflicts themselves and to integrate into a group. We observe the children and support them in finding and implementing their own feelings, wishes and solutions.
We give the youngest children their own sleep and eating rhythm. The winding situation is lovingly, sensually designed with a lot of time and space.
In consultation with parents and children, we offer developmental rest options (sleep or rest). We lovely respond to daily needs. Older children also get a place to sleep on request if they feel like it.
A great strength of ours is the accompaniment of the child in the development of an independent, self-responsible personality.
Children are subject to their own development process at individual pace. We offer the children the time they need and the corresponding framework. We want to create a foundation with the children that enables them to develop everyday relevant skills. On this basis, cognitive, mental skills develop.
We regularly question and edit our picture of the child within the team meetings. For personal further education, various literature and working materials are available to the teachers in the office. Furthermore, internal and external further developments are promoted by the sponsor.
Educational understanding
Sensory perception is related to all educational and support areas in the life of a 0 to 7-year-old child.
Our goal is to shape the children's life skills through conscious perception and stimulation of the senses and to make us aware of these as educational goals.
⦁ Sensory and Perceptual Competences
⦁ Body and movement competence
⦁ Relationship ability
⦁ Resilience
⦁ Motivation competence
⦁ Concentration and thinking ability, listening
⦁ Experience of own competence
⦁ Joie de vivre
⦁ Values
⦁ Openness
Tolerance
Solidarity
Responsibility
⦁ orientation
⦁ Regulation
⦁ Tension and relaxation
⦁ Life security
⦁ Belonging and group relationship
⦁ Self-confidence
Responsibility
⦁ Cooperation
⦁ Change of role and perspective
Communication, Language
⦁ Health awareness
The task of the educators is therefore to get to know and observe the children. The observation is regularly carried out using an observation tool determined by the team. However, the individual child also plays an important role in looking at the entire group. Based on the observations and in connection with the collegial exchange, the educators plan the pedagogical offers. These combine interests, inclinations with age-appropriate experiences in all areas of education and are the basis of our inclusive, systemic work.
We educators are role models and partners, promote, accompany, help and support. We awaken the curiosity and let the children inspire us. We educate and develop ourselves independently and in a team.
The team creates the conditions for realization together. We regularly discuss once a week in the small group team, as well as once a month in the large, cross-group team. All information, planning or agreements are documented and stored in order to enable comprehensive networking. We coordinate and design kindergarten daily life systematically together. We understand ourselves as interested partners of the families.
We support our common goal of knowing and recognizing the children with a common means of observation. Every educator has a book available with which at least once a year the development status is illustrated by a traffic light system. The book refers to the work “Development of the Senses” by Ylva Ellneby and considers the relevant areas of schooling ability.
The development of the children is documented together with the child, making learning processes visible to families and children and securely stored in the language learning diary or in accordance with data protection regulations. Through this form of documentation, children, parents and educators gain confidence in achieving the next step in development. We thus value their own process.
By recognizing the child's educational intention, we can stimulate their competencies with ideas and materials. The parents are accompanied and supported in their upbringing through the development conversations and door-to-door conversations.
⦁ Daily schedule
The development of the senses is based on rhythm and repetition. This is provided by conscious daily, weekly, monthly and annual processes.
06:00 AM daycare center opening
07:50 am joint morning circle
08:00 AM Breakfast
08:30 AM Second delivery time
09:00 AM Group internal time with specific offers
11:00 AM lunch; slightly delayed depending on age group
11:45 AM Sleep or rest period
2:30 PM Vespers
3:00 PM pick-up time, free play, separate offers
5:00 PM Kindergarten closing time
Mondays is sports day and we go group-to-group, at different times in the nearby sports hall. Tuesday is toy day and the children are allowed to bring a toy from home that they can show the other children and play with in the group. On Wednesday, Peter, a musician, comes to our institution to make music with all the children, age separate in several groups. The children are introduced to rhymes, songs, movements/dances and first instruments.
Together we design birthdays, recognize the change of seasons and celebrate festivals such as Fasching, Easter, Summer Festival, Lantern Festival, Nicholas, Christmas etc.
⦁ settling-in concept
Our settling-in concept reflects the way in which our institution picks up children - and in this case parents - where they are.
We address each family specifically and want to accompany them individually in the transition from “family only” to “family and kindergarten”.
After the parents of future children have the chance to inform themselves about us and our work on certain days during a kindergarten visit. You will get an insight into our work and processes, as well as the duties as a parent of a parent initiative.
For parents, there is also a starter letter and a questionnaire to fill in. This includes questions about eating behavior, sleep rituals, calming methods and special wishes of parents to us.
This allows us to approach the child and his developmental stage very individually, concerns and needs are taken seriously.
⦁ Everyday Integrated Language Promotion
Structured weekly plans, observation, movement and role modeling
Train > Consolidate > Stabilize > Automate > Apply
We as an institution want to create daily age- and situation-appropriate language suggestions in order to increase the educational and learning opportunities of our children entrusted to us.
We take into account:
- Children bring the equipment for language acquisition to the world
- Language develops primarily through self-motivation and rich offers
- Each child has their own level of development and individual learning strategies
- Children learn language through experience with all the senses and through extensive daily exercise.
- Indispensible is a trusting and positive approach to all participants
- We see ourselves as an active and emphatic listener
- We continue to educate ourselves
- if difficulties arise due to disease-related influences (hearing difficulties due to frequent middle ear infections, mutism, numbness, dyslalia or others), we are obliged to demand help from third parties (doctors, speech therapists, acousticians...)
- we strive for correct language behavior, we are a language model (authentic and empathetic)
- we actively involve the parenting partners in our work (parent evenings, topic evenings, development talks and suggestions)
- We encourage a welcome culture
In our institution, mother-tongue children, bilingual children and foreign-speaking refugee children are cared for. At the moment, around nine different languages are integrated into everyday life in our facility.
Our offers are based on the children’s development and interests and are designed to take on a challenging character.
Since 2019, we have also been working on “Everyday Integrated Language Education and Language Promotion – HIT”. All pedagogical employees of this institution have been certified as part of a further training.
⦁ Protection concept
The kindergarten is a place where girls and boys have the opportunity to experience themselves as part of a community in which the needs of everyone are important, where the big, strong and rough do not prevail. This includes, in addition to the lived preventive educational attitude, actively dealing with the topic of violence, sexual assault and abuse and thus reducing fears and insecurities, looking out and taking the right steps if you suspect abuse.
The attitude of all caring persons is based on professionalism and expertise and cannot be constructed by their own and personal beliefs. Professionalism means that not only personal opinions and attitudes may determine the handling of child sexual activities, but expertise forms the basis.
The focus is always on the protection of the individual child – education is the best protection!
We have formulated our own protection concept and are guided by the “Berlin uniform risk assessment in case of suspicion of endangerment of the well-being of a child or adolescent”.