Enzweiler daycare center

Substitution

• The closing times are communicated to parents at the beginning/end of each year.
• The Enzweiler daycare center is closed for three weeks during the summer vacations, between Christmas and New Year, on bridge days and on a total of 4 team days per year.
• Additional closing days due to company outings or staff meetings may occur and will be announced in good time.

• 26 part-time places (7 a.m. to 2 p.m.) from 2 years of age,
• 11 full-day places (7 a.m. to 5 p.m.) from 2 years of age,
• 3 full-day places for one-year-olds

There are currently 7 educational specialists working in our daycare center, divided into 1 full-time position and 6 part-time positions. In the U3 area, 2 educational specialists are available to look after the children. In the Ü3 area, 5 nursery nurses are assigned to full-time and part-time shifts.

The complete version of the concept is available at the daycare center or can be viewed there. Only a few parts are listed here to provide a brief insight.

Educational areas
"Learning is possible in very different areas and is not fundamentally limited to a few fields of learning. Learning takes place essentially in the learning situations and learning opportunities created by educators, in which the children learn with and from each other" (excerpt from: "Educational recommendations for daycare centers in Rhineland-Palatinate")

Movement construction site
This is equipped with many different movement materials. The highlight is our wall bars and climbing wall. The development of motor skills is closely linked to the development of all brain functions. Movement is very important for cognitive, social and physical development. For us, movement means that the children can live out their natural urge to move. Through our spacious outdoor area and our movement construction site, we enable the children to discover and try out different types of movement, such as balancing, climbing, running, jumping and sliding. By trying things out, the children can recognize their own limits and thus learn to better assess dangers (e.g. when climbing on the climbing frame). We also use this room for our regular singing and storytelling circles. After lunch, the movement construction site is used as a rest and relaxation room. In the mornings, the sleep room in the U3 area is available to the Ü3 children.

Creative room
In this room, the children work with different materials such as pencils, scissors, paper and brushes. They get to know different techniques and try them out.

Hallway
Our large designed hallway offers the children opportunities to try out role play and theater. The children have the opportunity to imitate their environment and express it through play. In doing so, the children learn to better understand their environment. Children should be enabled to

• to express themselves in role-plays and represent someone/something,
• get to know different forms of performance and experiment with them, e.g. theater, shadow play, puppet play, radio play, etc,
• get to know verbal and non-verbal means of expression and their effect, e.g. emphasis, tone of voice, facial expressions, gestures, movement, etc,
• to move to music and thus experience the music and your own body.

Outdoor area/ Explorers' corner
Our outdoor area is used extensively as a play area at any time of year thanks to its wide range of possibilities. Thanks to the many possibilities, the children can climb, swing, slide, build, crawl, jump, run, ride bikes and much more. They get to know different materials, get to grips with them, try them out and explore them. Our outdoor area is a "little forest" with lots of meadows, bushes, hedges and fruit trees. There is a covered research corner in the outdoor area with materials that are accessible to the children at all times.

Breakfast Ü3 area
Each child brings their own breakfast from home, which can be eaten at the free breakfast between 8:00 and 10:00. We accompany the children at breakfast because it is important that the children are well fed. There is also a connection here between supporting the children's sense of self and their autonomy. The children set their breakfast table with plates and cups, decide which of the drinks provided (tea, juice spritzer or water) they would like to drink, help themselves and clear away their used dishes independently after breakfast. We also take part in the "European School Fruit" program. This means that fresh fruit is available to all children in the morning. Once a month, we offer a communal breakfast where the children can express their wishes and help prepare the food.

Breakfast U3 area
With reference to the above, it should be mentioned here that the children in the U3 area eat their meals at a fixed time in their group. This fixed structure offers the younger children a reliable framework and therefore security.

Lunch
We offer all children a warm lunch. Lunch is delivered fresh daily by a selected caterer and is eaten from 11.45 am. Here, the children gain experience of community, experience various rituals, learn social values and norms, as well as table culture outside of their family.

Afternoon snack
The children bring a snack from home, which they then eat together with the full-day children at 3.30 pm.

U3 area
In the rear area of the daycare center, the children under the age of 3 have their own group room and an adjoining room, which is used for resting and sleeping. Educational work with very young children differs from that with regular children, as children under the age of 3 require more intensive emotional attention and the care aspects take up more time. For this reason, we strive to always have two constant nursery nurses with the U3 children, which is not always possible due to staff shortages in the daycare center. Sleeping is organized according to the individual sleeping habits and sleeping needs of the children. Everyday life at the daycare center is often exhausting and tiring, especially for the very youngest children. We therefore reserve the right to decide when a child needs sleep. Sufficient sleeping facilities are available. We provide a trusting and cozy atmosphere that makes it easier to fall asleep.

Education for independence
Our educational work is designed to encourage children to act and learn independently, for example through the freedom of choice that each child has when they can select, use and design the functional areas themselves.
The materials for playing and working are freely available for selection and use. During free play, the children also have the opportunity to decide the time, duration and type of play themselves. We encourage and further stimulate the children's independent activities. In order to give the child a certain amount of personal responsibility, it is important to make common rules and agreements that are understandable and appropriate for the child. This happens in the daily educational process and in the development of the whole group. For example, we trust the children to use the outdoor area and the movement construction site in small groups without constant supervision by a teacher. In doing so, we take into account the level of development, age and reliability of the individual child. Independence also means mastering everyday tasks such as dressing and undressing independently, going to the toilet on their own, carrying out small jobs (fetching and taking things away) or collecting materials needed for work.

Project work
In addition to the wide range of activities and targeted offers, project work is a form of everyday life at the daycare center that develops from the ideas of the children and teachers. By working on projects, the children learn to implement actions, processes and designs themselves.

Some of the aims of project work:

• Promoting the development and implementation of own ideas
• Stimulating the imagination and creativity of the individual
• Encouraging children's curiosity
• Expanding the vocabulary
• Accepting and expressing criticism
• Supporting independence and community skills

Participation
Participation means the active and sustainable involvement and co-determination of children in planning and decisions that affect their living environment. Children should be brought up to be active and proactive individuals. We achieve this when children are involved in matters that affect them in an age- and development-appropriate manner. We take the children and their ideas, wishes and needs seriously and ensure that there are sufficient opportunities for participation and support them in their implementation.

Examples in everyday life could be

• Interior design
• Planning of projects/activities
• Rules
• Daily routine

Children should learn to represent their interests and experience participation as a responsibility. They can gain such experiences at our children's conference. This takes place on a weekly basis. The children are strengthened in their independence and personal responsibility and are formed into people who take an interest in each other and use their interests. The children develop an awareness of acceptance of others and learn ways of dealing with conflict.

Last daycare year
We want to promote a sense of togetherness within the group of future schoolchildren in order to grow together as a community. The educational goals anchored in our pedagogical concept are the basis for a self-confident personality development that can survive in life and at school.

In our facility, the pedagogical work is and remains oriented towards the life situations and spontaneous ideas of the children. The resulting learning takes place situationally in daily interaction, in play, in project work and in all activities that take place in the daycare center. We want to encourage the children to cope competently and autonomously with life situations in the present and the near future, because it is not just the transfer of knowledge such as numbers from 0 - 10 or the distinction between circle and triangle, red and green alone that is important, but skills such as
are part of holistic personal development:

• The courage to say no
• Dare to try something new without fear
• Curious and motivated to try things out

• to speak freely and without shyness in large groups
• not to be discouraged by defeats
• to form their own opinion
• answer for yourself
• to teach children the ability to finish a task they have started
• increase stamina
• express yourself in complete sentences
• increase memory and concentration
• learn to be considerate
• learn to listen
• letting others finish

In the final year, a further focus will be on experiencing the reality of life outside the daycare center. This includes, for example, road safety education, getting to know the school and much more, as well as excursions to the local area.

Quality development in discourse
In our daycare center, we have chosen "parent participation" as the first area. To this end, we have set up a communication tree with the children, which is located in the immediate vicinity of the entrance. This is used to get a quick overview of current information/planning and to actively participate in what is happening at the daycare center. The first certification took place in February 2019. Within four years, we can choose another sub-area that we would like to develop further in order to obtain follow-up certification.
In order to optimize the quality of our educational work, the educational staff at the facility regularly take part in individual and team training.