New School Year, New challenges, New opportunities - an insider's view

This year I took over a new generation of children aged 3 to 4 years old. The group is called »The Pandas«.

The mother of the girl in the photo prepared a brochure based on her China travels. The girl who always keeps surprising us with her rich vocabulary told us about her mom's China adventures when she got to visit real pandas. She told us the whole story using the photos.

I have also been facing a new challenge since there is a special needs boy in our group. He has been teaching and enriching us all with new revelations – that it is important to accept each child as they are, including all their uniqueness, including where they come from and what kind of developmental disabilities they might have. We can all learn from children regarding how the special needs children in the preschool era are being accepted without prejudice.

Last year my colleague Saša and I included all kinds of parents into our project – Slovenian parents, mixed marriage parents where one of them didn't speak the language, and immigrant parents. They all responded and prepared some unforgettable get-togethers.

At the first parent-teacher meeting of the year, I shared some of our last year's experience with the parents. They looked at the photos with interest.

This year we reached an agreement with the parents to invite the grandparents to our kindergarten. We would mostly focus on Slovenian cuisine and other nations' cuisines, especially during the festive season. I will invite individuals and associations that will be able to teach us anything about a certain nation's customs - dance, national costume, an object that is used (or used to be used) in the kitchen or on the farm.

The parents loved the idea and were willing to participate.

This way I would like to bring together all three generations that will take us back to the time of their youth using their experience that they are still living to this day. And we will try to learn as much as we can from these meetings.

The first grandfather that joined us brought all kinds of mushrooms from the woods – edible and inedible. He marked them using different colors. The children were able to hold the edible mushrooms in their hands, look at them and smell them. Grandpa Brane told us that only experts should pick mushrooms. If we see them in the woods, we don't destroy them – we leave them alone so they can keep growing.

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Since the mushroom soup was a little too heavy for the children, only us adults tried it. We also prepared vegetable soup for the children.

My colleagues Blaž and Simona turned into chefs and prepared the mushroom soup. The children were watching the entire process of the preparation and unknowingly included all their senses. They learned how to prepare the ingredients and cook the soup. They could also feel the irritation during onion cutting.

A week later Grandpa Brane brought us some vegetables from his garden. The children were looking at them, touching them. We named the ones we already knew and got the know the ones we did not.

In the photo, you can see the girl's pride, happiness, and attachment to her grandfather.

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The headmistress and the manager were also invited to the soup tasting.