The better a child can play, the better it can learn.
In playing, children deal with themselves and the world in an active manner. While playing, they can experiment, explore and understand in a world they create for themselves. They can handle and cope with experiences, for example, by re-enacting a situation in role-play, children have the ability to recognize logical connections and draw conclusions. They can try out different roles and behaviours and feel and understand their impact on others.
In playing, children learn basic social skills on how to make agreements and honour them, how to express their own ideas and how to take those of others into consideration. Children learn from other children while playing. Each child can contribute, implement and expand his or her skills. Joint positive experiences in playing strengthen the team spirit and self-confidence. Playing is a pleasurable activity that is accompanied by positive feelings. It is therefore particularly effective. All these positive criteria enable us to realise that playing is very important for the development of a child’s personality.
Free Play
We attach great importance to free play. In children’s free play, their state of development clearly becomes apparent, because the way a three-year-old child plays is fundamentally different from that of a six-year-old child. Free play does not serve a purpose and is entirely based on the inner impulses of the child. Motor and sensory skills, basic skills and knowledge of the world are trained in free play. Free play offers children the opportunity to take on daily experiences and adventures at their discretion, deal with them in a creative way and convert them into positive forces. In order to allow a child’s creativity to unfold he or she is provided with a lot of time. The educators watch the playing carefully and limit it if deemed necessary. The teachers are a role model and an inspiration for the children in terms of looking for an activity or coming into play.
Children are provided with materials that can be used in many ways, dependent only on their imagination. The materials are suitable for role-playing and for large-scale construction, painting or handicraft and experimentation. In this context, the spatial structure is very important. Children can rely on the fact that they will find the materials at the agreed locations. Therefore they all tidy up together at the end of the free play time.
In the free play time in the garden, all the senses can be activated once more. Children experience the elements of nature such as water, sand, light, air and, during festivities, fire, too. Children climb, swing, and play with stones or wood. In the “mudhole” they are allowed to play with water, sand, stone and wood. In moving around freely in nature, their senses of movement and balance are trained. Children become skilled and assured. In free play, the child experiences social interaction, mutual help and consideration, and must observe boundaries or learn to wait.
Overview Kindergarten concept:
> Our Mission Statement
> Educational Orientation
> Daily Routine
> ”Open Work“
> Facilities
> Younger and older children under one roof
> Room and time to rest
> Areas of Education
> Learning experiences in the game
> Children in the last year in kindergarten
> Public relations
> Observation and Documentation
> Quality Assurance
This post is also available in: German
