Dec & Jan at Horizons

Horizons
27. ožu 2017.
3 min čitanja

Second quarter of the school year is always a busy time of the year at Horizons.

In December we organize a Christmas Show and Party for children, parents and teachers to socialize outside every day situation; we prepare for St Nicholas and a short Christmas break.

Decorating The Kindergarten

In our work we always try to include both children and their families in what we do. We cooperate through projects, individual tasks or simple every day recyclable material collecting that we can re-purpose in our work with children.

St. Nicholas Day

For St. Nicholas Day teachers prepared a little surprise for children.

By old legends Children who were nice would get a little wooden toy, an apple and a nut painted in gold. Today that tradition changed to primarily sweets. For children who were naughty the legend says they would find coal in their socks and sometimes even a stick - they would get it from Krampus who followed St. Nicholas and you would recognize him by the sound of bells. Today the tradition of coals has died out but the little sticks remained. They became a trademark and are given as a symbol of St. Nicholas Day.

We also initiated activities where we explored who St. Nicholas was and what made him so special. Children particularly loved the legends and stories about St. Nicholas and Krampus.

St. Lucia Day

In Croatia it is believed that Christmas Wheat should be planted on St. Lucia's Day. From then till Christmas the way the wheat grows it will determine what kind of year will it be for the next year's crops and cultures.

There is also a belief that says that in those twelve day (from December 13th till December 24th) one should keep track of the weather in 4 hours intervals. It is said that each of those 4 hours presents a month in next year and the weather that will be.

With children we planted Christmas Wheat and nursed it to grow strong and healthy. Children put a lot of care in planting it on cotton and then took turns in watering it.

Christmas Play

Traditionally every year around Christmas we take the children to the theater to watch a Christmas themed play. This year we also did it with a little help of parents.

Workshop With The Parents

We invited parents to join us in creating Christmas Cheer :)

Cooking With Parent

We also asked parents to come and help us in preparing a treat from children to parents on our Christmas Show.

Christmas Show

This December we also incorporated topics through which we wanted to enable children to explore different materials but also to become more aware of the values behind gifting.

Topic: Christmas & Friends

Topic: Carpentry & Toy Making

Topic: Everyday Materials & Toy Making

During January we celebrated events from our international calendar such as: 11.01. - International Thank You Day 20.01. - Take a Walk Outside Day 28.01. - Chinese New Year and we started a new set of topics that enabled children to further explore winter as a season of the year but also world around them.

For the World Thank You Day we decided that it should last more than one day. We tried our best to be good helping friends who appreciate each other and say thank you to each other every day.

Take a Walk Outside Day - we took advantage of the first snow and spent a wonderful time outside.

Chinese New Year is a festivity introduced in our kindergarten a few years back by parents from a boy who were from China. Since then we always love to celebrate that even and think of them. Children particularly like making paper lanterns.