Parent Visiting Day at Kindergarten

On Monday, we all went to school together. Arrival time is between 8:10 and 8:20 am, but kids were still trickling until 8:30 am. We were impressed that most of the kids stayed seated on their chairs. At one point some of the kids got up to draw, but we're not sure why.

Around 8:30 am the teacher played a recorder and all of the kids returned to their seats. We observed the hour-long circle time. The teacher uses a lot of music, participation, and physical activity to engage the kids, but it was clear the LGG was getting bored because she couldn't understand anything. There was a "Guten Tag" song that she would not participate in, but on the walk home, she did talk about the words to the song, so we know she is listening. At the end of circle time the teacher assigned jobs to various kids (fetch the basket with all of the snack bags, open the windows). Then the kids had snack around 9:30 am.

We were impressed that some of the kids had sandwiches. But maybe they didn't have breakfast and so this was their first meal of the day. We left during snack time since it didn't make sense to just sit and watch them eat snacks.

In this school, Kindergarten 1 and Kindergarten 2 are combined. The KiGa2 kids come back for a couple of hours on Tuesday and Thursday afternoons. In order to attend Kindergarten 1, the child must be 5 by the end of April, although kids born in May, June and July can petition to start early. So the oldest and youngest kids could be as many as 27 months apart. I don't think LGG is the youngest kid, but she is certainly on the younger side. The goal of kindergarten is teach the kids orderliness, obedience, and discipline. And to change their own clothes and be able to walk to school by themselves by the time they are six.