Visit in Germany - Kinderhaus Ludwig-Uhland-Straße, Maintal. 3-7 October 2011

(German comment) _ After the interesting and impressive visits to Italy and Turkey we were proud to welcome our partners on the project "L2L" to our "Kinderhaus Uhland-StraBe" in Maintal at the beginning of October 2011. Our guests were 20 highly motivated teachers from Italy, Catalonia and Turkey, curiois to get information about German way of working with children. The Kinderhaus aroused their curiosity because of its unique conception and their way of working. The classes are heterogenic in ages (from the age of three to eleven). The children work mostly in projects with self-generated content. The teachers support the children developing their skills through letting them find out (discovering) their own interests and their appropriate ways of learning. the classrooms have individual functions durind the time of "free playing". For example "research", "theatre" or "music" etc.

The first impression of Kinderhaus may have been very confusing for our guests.

Our visitors also gave special attention to the "forest group", because the idea of the forest group conception is very interesting and uncommon, especially in the countries our guests came from.
After four days of observation, reflexion and intensive discussion, we had a final official presentation where the guests gave a summary of their impressions. First they were "shocked" about the conception of the Kinderhaus. They asked themselves how children could learn while not being directly taught in topics. they were surprised that children wanted to learn and develop their own topics and plans of learning. Our guests were surprised about the even temper of the children and their interest in learning. They admired the provision of space and materials that create ideal learning situations, in order to develop the children's skills.

They noticed the great experience and empathy of the German teachers in working with children. Their final comment was to say "you are magic!" We German teachers were touched and also very proud.

We are working on the generative questions:

What are the key ideas and choices on the basis of our environmental planning?

In which way does the environment support children to experiment polisensoriality?

In which way does the environment support children autonomies?

We had also much fun together. Excursions and festivities were organised.We had tours exploring the cities of Frankfurt, Gelnhausen and Maintal-Hochstadt.We visited a centre of pedagogical education in Gelnhausen and the primary school "Villa Kunterbunt" in Maintal. We had a great party, full of fun and high spirits, with hessian specialities like Handkas (cheese, not loved by everyone) and Saurekraut and entertainment with the music group "Wingerts".The final party was organised in cooperation with the parents of the Kinderhaus. They created a great buffet with various international specialities.