Education and Care
According to the 2001 Conference on Youth and Childhood by the State Governors, a holistic early childhood education means “supporting each child in such a way that he/she/they can develop individually in terms of personal and social education and participate in social and cultural development”. Our pedagogical team is able to reflect and promote children’s basic competencies, i.e. their fundamental skills and character traits and, according to our experience, the promotion of these competencies can only be successful in a collaborative environment and in cooperation with all children and their caregivers.
It is therefore of the utmost importance to the team at the International Daycare Center Curumim that each child is individually and holistically seen, recognized and encouraged. The reality of their life and the principles of their family are observed and considered on an individually. Learning and the development of their skills, such as perception, attention, motor skills, language and sociability, are achieved on a daily basis through the pedagogical staff working together with the children, both during daily activities, such as meals, the organization of the environment and personal hygiene, and during free or guided activities, free or playground play, strolls or excursions. Each activity is designed to help children develop or acquire each of their skills in an intuitive and fun way.
We take our pedagogical work with children very seriously and therefore the framework and basis of this work is based on the legal mandate, i.e. the law that includes the federal regulations on the welfare of children and young people in Germany, Book Eight of the Social Code (SGB VIII).
Other fundamental bases for the educational work at the Daycare Center Curumim are the Hessen Education and Parenting Plan, the complementary booklets on children in the first three years of life and the QSV – Successful Educational Practice in Daycare Centers, as well as “Rights, Protection and Participation in Daycare Centers in Frankfurt”.
Pedagogical objective
A fundamental part of the pedagogical work at the Nursery Curumim is to promote and support the development of each child’s emotional, cognitive, social and psychomotor competencies through a holistic education.
Our aim is for children to become independent, self-confident and satisfied individuals, not only aware of their responsibility towards themselves, others and the environment, but also individuals who are able to take on that responsibility.
In order to meet the individual needs of each child, the pedagogical work of the Daycare Center is influenced by various pedagogical perspectives: Montessori, Situational Approach, project-based work, Emmi Pikler, etc. These approaches are regularly reflected upon and the pedagogical work is adapted accordingly. In addition, we focus on diversity and sustainability. In the long term, we strive to establish a zero-waste, anti-racist nursery that deconstructs prejudices of all kinds. To achieve this, we hold seminars and regular meetings of the pedagogical team with experts in their respective fields.
Multilingual Daycare and its advantages
An Education that promotes intercultural competence also promotes tolerance towards diversity and “being different”. This enables people to know, value and accept cultural differences. Language and culture are closely related.
The most important principle of multilingual early childhood education is the balance between emotional and linguistic interaction. So, a multilingual nursery can have a positive influence on the child’s life, not only in terms of developing social skills, but also intellectual ones.
Learning both languages must be related to the environment and situational understanding. Following the principle of immersion, the children at Curumim learn a language through playful activities, everyday conversations and repetition, as natural and simple as possible. This is one of the best-known ways, but not the only one, to achieve multilingualism.
Accompanying transitions
The pedagogical team works closely with the family and external kindergartens to accompany and support all children during their transitions. Transition support is tailored to the individual situation of the children, their families and ourpedagogical staff.
During the adaptation period, the child must get used to the new environment, the other children, the customs and practices of the Curumim Nursery, gently and in the presence of family members, in accordance with their attachment behavior. This period is also a good opportunity for the family to get to know the other children, the people who work at Curumim and our daily routine.
The familiarization period at the nursery usually lasts between 6 and 8 weeks and between 3 and 4 weeks at the kindergarten. After the initial phase, in which the child is accompanied by our pedagogical team and one of their family members, who slowly and gently withdraws, according to the child’s needs. The adaptation is complete when the child feels comfortable and safe enough in our environment and with our staff that they can be comforted by her reference person in our team. For children between the ages of 1 and 3, this means that the child sleeps in the Daycare Center Curumim.
The transition from nursery to kindergarten can be an emotionally intense time for a young child, because at the same time as they and their families are happy about the new experience and life cycle they are about to experience, they are faced with a certain amount of uncertainty that this new situation and its changes represent. Involving the family and taking their needs and concerns into consideration is important not only for the family structure, but also for the pedagogical staff at our facility, who discuss, thematize and ritualize the transition to kindergarten with the children, both those who are leaving and those who are staying.
Together with family members and, if possible, the external kindergarten, the pedagogical team plan the steps to organize the transition. For example, a small group of children and professionals from both centers organize and visit the external kindergarten together.
Not all children from the nursery groups can be accepted into the kindergarten group at the International Daycare Center Curumim, but those who can, have the opportunity to get used to it with more time and support by visiting the kindergarten group together with their reference person from our pedagogical team a month before they leave the nursery group, which facilitates their integration into the kindergarten group. In any case, the whole process is agreed and coordinated between the groups, family members and professionals.
Movement education
The aim of promoting and supporting the child’s motor development, considering their natural need for movement, is usually carried out as follows:
Social education
In this area, children develop through interaction with themselves, their peers and the environment, while also learning important rules of coexistence and how to respect them. The discovery of their own needs is linked to the discovery of the needs of others and mutual respect, so that older children become role models for younger ones. Assertiveness, expressing wishes and communicating needs in everyday interactions are also reinforced and encouraged. This is implemented, for example, through:
Musical-rhythmic early education
The Daycare Center Curumim aims to encourage children’s interest and joy in music from an early age and, to this end, offers the following activities:
Health education, hygiene and well-being
A healthy, balanced diet is the basis for healthy growth. The Daycare Center Curumim aims to lay the foundations for a healthy relationship with food in every child.
Lunch is delivered fresh daily by a catering company and both breakfast and afternoon snacks are sugar-free and prepared with fresh fruit, vegetables, butter, cheese, bread, cereals and organic yogurt.
Hygiene is a top priority at the facility, which is why washing hands before and after meals and brushing teeth are part of our daily routine.
Environmental Education
Everything in the environment offers children incentives to learn, discover and observe, and every child’s natural impulse to explore is encouraged daily at our day care center through various activities, for example:
The environment is extremely complex and is not limited to nature. It also includes nutrition, noise pollution, energy consumption and consumer behavior. Since protecting and caring for nature is very important, we strive to become a Zero-Waste Daycare Center in the long term, for example by using environmentally friendly materials and avoiding plastic and other environmentally harmful materials as much as possible.
Free play
Free play is essential for children’s development and therefore indispensable in the daycare routine. Children are encouraged to exercise their own initiative to develop their independence, accept rules and resolve conflicts, decide on the type of game, the game itself, its duration and who they play with.
Other aspects to consider are dealing with themes that influence the current life situation, as well as promoting creativity and communication skills. Personal interests, getting to know oneself and observing others are also part of this time.During free play, children are not alone. The pedagogical staff fulfills an important role here, which is to provide the appropriate space and materials for play, to accompany and play with the children (if the children want to), to encourage and act out make-believe, but also to withdraw again and pay special attention to compliance with the agreements and rules that have been made.
In addition, the pedagogical team has the opportunity to observe individual and group situations, and thus also serve as a basis for recognizing and meeting individual and collective needs.
Education and language development
Through language and speech, children establish a relationship with their environment and acquire language continuously and gradually through everyday situations. In order to deepen language acquisition and broaden the range of activities on offer, the International Daycare Center Curumim offers various activities in German, Portuguese/English, depending on the theme, which support the learning of everyday language and the development of each child’s phonological awareness, for example:
Children’s language development varies greatly from individual to individual and is accompanied in different ways. In order to do justice to the different biographies of monolingual and bilingual development and to be able to respond individually to each child, the pedagogical team carries out differentiated observations with each child.
Festivals and celebrations at the Daycare Center Curumim
Celebrations are the highlights of the year. Children need familiar and recognizable rituals that structure time. With these festivities, the daycare center creates opportunities for the children to experience different traditions and customs from different cultures. Curumim is secular and does not belong to any religious institution.
Festivals not only have an integrating and unifying character, they are also an excellent educational opportunity. That’s why we work with the children not only on the meaning, basic idea and sense of festivals, but also on their festive character, which is characterized not only by the expression of joy, singing, playing and dancing, but also by moments of reflection. The aim of our festivals is to provide children with moments of joy, conviviality and community, as well as to help them develop their socio-emotional, cognitive, gross and fine motor skills.
The dates of the parties, some of which we celebrate with parents, are indicated in our calendar.
Gender-aware education
Children are not only perceived differently in society in terms of gender stereotypes, but are also able to orientatethemselves in the community based on existing gender-specific differences. This is why, depending on their age, children are already, to a certain extent, stereotypically influenced by their environment, such as the family and the media.
These experiences are considered by the pedagogical staff at the International Daycare Center Curumim, but the aim of gender-aware education is to confront children with the characteristics of male and female gender roles in an age-appropriate way and to integrate them into their self-image, according to their character and individuality. To do this, it is important to highlight diversity beyond stereotypical gender roles and not fall into clichés, which also includes the relationship between the pedagogical team, families and their tasks.
Considering the mission of IMBRADIVA e.V. and to be role models for the children in terms of gender diversity, the pedagogical team at the Daycare Center Curumim must question and deconstruct their own internalized preconceptions of the “typical man” and the “typical woman”. To support them in this task, the daycare center regularly organizes ongoing training and concept days on this topic.
Child participation and children’s rights
Children have the right to be involved in all decisions that affect them, according to their stage of development. This means that they have the right to be included in the decision-making process as stakeholders, that they are given serious opportunities from an early age not only to exert influence, but also to take responsibility. The Daycare Center Curumim is a safe and ideal environment for developing these skills, such as practicing democratic competencies.
Our aim is to promote children’s independence and strengthen their self-confidence by allowing them to have a say in planning daily activities and, according to their age and development, the opportunity to help shape the day-to-day life of our facility. Children must be able to recognize and express their strengths and weaknesses and learn to deal with them consciously. In this way, by actively participating, they learn to argue constructively, i.e. to represent their own interests, to empathize with others and to be able to bear the fact that they can’t assert themselves eventually (frustration tolerance). A child who is used from the outset to being listened to and respected in small everyday decisions is more resilient and better able to protect themselves.
The daily opportunities for participation at Daycare Center Curumim lay the foundations for children to become responsible adults with discernment and decision-making skills.
Engagement and educational partnership with families
Participation involves not only the children, but also their families, who are seen as educational partners and cooperate accordingly for the benefit of the child, since a relationship characterized by trust between them and the pedagogical team is a basic prerequisite for the successful upbringing and education of the children.
The educational partnership is developed in various ways, namely through regular meetings between the family and the pedagogical staff, which provide an excellent opportunity for an open exchange between them, based on the professional confidentiality of the entire pedagogical team. There are also daily conversations at drop-off and pick-up times, the so-called door-to-door conversations, as well as conversations that take place in crisis situations, if necessary.
Other forms of family engagement in our facility include, for example, portfolios, in which they contribute to the creation of family pages and texts describing experiences at home, as well as close cooperation with parent representatives, in which parents have the opportunity to get involved in the day-to-day work of the Daycare Center Curumim, for example through joint activities, reading books, baking cakes and accompanying excursions, parties or projects.
Parents’ evenings are held regularly and are also used to elect the Parents’ Council. The Parents’ Council meets with the management and administration of the daycare to discuss current issues facing the facility, groups or families and thus incorporate suggestions from families into the pedagogical work.
Development of the institution and quality assurance
An important concern for the development of the work at Daycare Center Curumim is quality management, which leads to greater transparency, communication and information and helps to identify, reduce and avoid errors through regular reviews (quality assurance).
Responsibility for quality management lies with the management and, of course, also with IMBRADIVA e.V. Together, they are responsible for defining the daycare center’s objectives and ensuring the quality of the work at Daycare Center Curumim. The satisfaction of the people who work with us, the families, the children and our partners plays a key role in this area.
For quality to be achieved, all the necessary resources must be made available by IMBRAVIDA e.V. and the management. For example, qualified staff, duty rosters adapted to needs, room equipment, preparations, class councils and ongoing training are indispensable at the Daycare Center Curumim so that quality work can be carried out and a quality guarantee obtained.
A constant review of the applicable quality standards and the current status is reviewed, analyzed and developed during regular operations, such as pedagogical team meetings and concept-developing days. The results of quality development are recorded and stored in the team’s archives and the Nationaler Kriterienkatalog – Pädagogische Qualität in Tageseinrichtungen für Kinder (National Catalog of Criteria – Pedagogical Quality in Daycare Centers for Children), which is considered an important guiding instrument, is used by the Daycare Center Curumim team.
Child protection
There is an agreement between the city of Frankfurt and IMBRADIVA e.V. that ensures the procedure according to §8a of SGB VIII. The current version of the child protection project is a mandatory guideline for all daycare centers in case of a suspected threat to the child’s well-being and documentation at the daycare center is mandatory. Upon request, assessments are drawn up for the Child Protection Service (Jugendamt), which are passed on to the Jugendamt after the persons legally responsible for the child have been informed.
In case of strong indications, the observations and impressions are documented by the pedagogical staff and the daycare management is informed promptly. To substantiate the suspicion, the specialist staff use the so-called “Kiwo-Skala – Einschätzskala zur Kindeswohlgefährdung in Kindertageseinrichtungen” vom Kommunalverband für Jugend und Soziales Baden-Württemberg (KVJS) (“Kiwo Scale – Scale for assessing danger to children in daycare centres”, from the Baden-Württemberg Municipal Association for Youth and Social Affairs (KVJS)). If concerns become more severe, the management contacts an experienced pedagogical specialist and informs IMBRADIVA e.V. at the same time.
To ensure the safety of the children, everyone in the pedagogical team regularly takes part in internal information and training sessions on child protection and, if there are indications that a child’s well-being is at risk, the legal guardians of that child should be involved as soon as possible, unless this endangers the child’s safety.
Everyone who works at the Daycare Center Curumim has an extended criminal record certificate, the cost of which is borne by IMBRADIVA e.V. and which checks personal suitability every 5 years by presenting a new extended certificate.
IMBRADIVA e.V. has a cooperation agreement with the IFZ (Internationales Familienzentrum e. V., Center for Parental and Family Counseling) and, in case of suspected child endangerment, an experienced specialist is available for counseling within the framework of the § 8a SGB VIII procedure.
Misconduct and violence on the part of the pedagogical staff must not be tolerated or even encouraged, and everyone is called upon not to look the other way, not to remain silent and not to trivialise the facts.
This concept is not a definitive version, because just as children, adults and therefore humanity and society as a whole change and evolve over time, our pedagogical approach will also continue to evolve. We are constantly reflecting on and critically questioning our daily work with children and parents in order to recognise and adapt to future changes in a timely manner.
