Glia
11-23-2013, 10:14 PM
Radical back-to-nature forest kindergartens where children are allowed to climb trees and play with fire have spread across the country. Will the concept of the Waldkindergarten become Germany's next export success?
It's a chilly November morning, and half a dozen children are sitting in a circle singing songs and playing games. Pretty standard kindergarten fare the world over, but these children are sitting on logs in a forest around a campfire. This no ordinary day care center, this a Waldkindergarten.
Every morning, whatever the weather, 21 children arrive at Die Kleinen Pankgrafen, in Karow, a town just north of Berlin, one of more than 1,500 Waldkindergärtens across Germany. The movement is also spreading overseas with forest kindergartens in most continental European countries, big demand in Japan, South Korea and fledgling interest in the United States, Canada and the United Kingdom.
The thermometer is only just edging above freezing on this particular morning and biting easterly winds are making it feel more than a few degrees below zero. But Thorsten Reinecke, the head of Die Kleinen Pankgrafen, laughs at the reporter's concerns about the children's welfare. "This is nothing," he says. "'Whatever the weather' is not just a saying -- we stay out until it gets to -28 degrees Celsius (-18.4 degrees Fahrenheit). The children never get cold. They, and their parents, know how to dress. They're like little onions -- they're wrapped up in layers and layers of clothes."
If it does get exceptionally cold, the children (and teacher) can seek respite in the camp teepee (which also has a campfire) or a small wooden classroom -- but Reinecke insists the vast majority of time is spent outdoors, even in three feet of snow.
Letting Children Teach Themselves
Last winter, it snowed so much the children built themselves an igloo. It hasn't snowed yet this year so the igloo construction will have to wait, and on this day the fire is the main focus of the children's attention. But it's not, necessarily, that of the camp's four teachers. At times, the children are left unattended and when the fire dampens down slightly, four-year-old Finn adds fresh logs to the fire. Other children poke the fire with twigs.
If the teachers notice, they aren't showing any concern. "Maybe I don't have that much control and I can't always see them, but I know where they are," Reinecke says. "Not being there all the time allows them to assess risks better. The idea is for children to learn by themselves, learn from each other and learn from their experiences and their mistakes," he explains. This philosophy extends to the fire.
Another teacher, Nihal Öz, recalls a time when a boy stood in the fire "to see what would happen." "He came over and said 'look my feet didn't burn'," she says. "So we sat everyone down and told them about fire and showed them what happens if things stay in the fire." Discussions like that are as close as the Waldkindergarten gets to a lesson. There's little by way of structured activities beyond snack time at around 11 a.m. when the teachers bring out freshly cut fruit eaten directly from the bowl with the children's hands caked in mud from a morning of catching snails and building tree houses.
read the rest (https://www.spiegel.de/international/zeitgeist/forest-kindergartens-could-be-the-next-big-export-from-germany-a-935165.html#ref=nl-international)
It's a chilly November morning, and half a dozen children are sitting in a circle singing songs and playing games. Pretty standard kindergarten fare the world over, but these children are sitting on logs in a forest around a campfire. This no ordinary day care center, this a Waldkindergarten.
Every morning, whatever the weather, 21 children arrive at Die Kleinen Pankgrafen, in Karow, a town just north of Berlin, one of more than 1,500 Waldkindergärtens across Germany. The movement is also spreading overseas with forest kindergartens in most continental European countries, big demand in Japan, South Korea and fledgling interest in the United States, Canada and the United Kingdom.
The thermometer is only just edging above freezing on this particular morning and biting easterly winds are making it feel more than a few degrees below zero. But Thorsten Reinecke, the head of Die Kleinen Pankgrafen, laughs at the reporter's concerns about the children's welfare. "This is nothing," he says. "'Whatever the weather' is not just a saying -- we stay out until it gets to -28 degrees Celsius (-18.4 degrees Fahrenheit). The children never get cold. They, and their parents, know how to dress. They're like little onions -- they're wrapped up in layers and layers of clothes."
If it does get exceptionally cold, the children (and teacher) can seek respite in the camp teepee (which also has a campfire) or a small wooden classroom -- but Reinecke insists the vast majority of time is spent outdoors, even in three feet of snow.
Letting Children Teach Themselves
Last winter, it snowed so much the children built themselves an igloo. It hasn't snowed yet this year so the igloo construction will have to wait, and on this day the fire is the main focus of the children's attention. But it's not, necessarily, that of the camp's four teachers. At times, the children are left unattended and when the fire dampens down slightly, four-year-old Finn adds fresh logs to the fire. Other children poke the fire with twigs.
If the teachers notice, they aren't showing any concern. "Maybe I don't have that much control and I can't always see them, but I know where they are," Reinecke says. "Not being there all the time allows them to assess risks better. The idea is for children to learn by themselves, learn from each other and learn from their experiences and their mistakes," he explains. This philosophy extends to the fire.
Another teacher, Nihal Öz, recalls a time when a boy stood in the fire "to see what would happen." "He came over and said 'look my feet didn't burn'," she says. "So we sat everyone down and told them about fire and showed them what happens if things stay in the fire." Discussions like that are as close as the Waldkindergarten gets to a lesson. There's little by way of structured activities beyond snack time at around 11 a.m. when the teachers bring out freshly cut fruit eaten directly from the bowl with the children's hands caked in mud from a morning of catching snails and building tree houses.
read the rest (https://www.spiegel.de/international/zeitgeist/forest-kindergartens-could-be-the-next-big-export-from-germany-a-935165.html#ref=nl-international)