GAP
Practical guidance, family resources and everyday moments connected to German-language early learning through GAP Playschool.
These posts help families understand the rhythm, routines, culture and community around early childhood learning at Spielwelt.
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Winter arrives at GAP
Our recent chilly mornings have put colour into our cheeks and piqued the children’s curiosity about winter, frost, snow, ice and all things frozen. (No, no, not the musical Frozen… that’s a whole other story!) Today the children created some lovely paper snowflakes and winter-themed art. We sang songs about the seasons, and learned about…
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German Year 10 student service activity
When we were contacted by a Year 10 student from Canberra Grammar school, who spoke perfect German and was interested to put in some community service hours for his school with us at GAP, we said, “Ja klar!” And we are glad we did. Carl arrived bright and early on a chilly Monday morning and…
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Frogwatch Visitor Hops In
The Thursday/Friday GAP class enjoyed having our German biologist early educator friend Anke Maria hop in to visit, bringing her educational toys from Frogwatch. We heard from her friend Friedrich der Frosch (a frog puppet) about some of the threats to his environment: feral cats, bulldozers, people, sunscreen and detergent in the rivers, plastic bags…
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More recycling at Spielwelt
You may have noticed a few extra bins around at the Turner Scout Hall, in the kitchen and the new foyer. We are making it easier for families to be greener… which is very German, so embrace the programs and enjoy feeling cultural and forward thinking with us! The GAP children and scouts enjoyed their…
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Clockworks
Sometimes the children’s interests takes our curriculum in all sorts of directions. There has been an interest in clocks and time lately in the Monday/Tuesday class, so we decided to create our own clocks. We have heard stories with clocks and time in them, and sung songs about clocks. You could say we are going…
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Architect visit
During our occupations theme, we were lucky to have Serge (one of our dads) visit the Monday/Tuesday GAP class to tell us about his work as an architect. First we had the chance to check out pictures of some of the buildings he had designed, and other neat European buildings. We each were allowed to…
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Lantern Walk 2018
Sankt Martin was seen galloping about on his trusty horse on Sunday night in Haig Park, amidst the many children and families with their beautiful lanterns, at this year’s German Lantern Walk. Many Spielwelt families and their guests rugged up and braved the authentic-German-winter night air, to join the festivities. There was music throughout the…
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Occupations
The children at the GAP have been learning about various occupations in our community. They enjoyed baking and selling their delicacies at the Lecker Baeckerei bakery, styling our teachers at Fritz Frisur’s hairdressing shop, selling goods at our grocery shop, engineering new buildings at our Bob der Baumeister construction site… … doing administrative work and stamping…
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Bake Sale: the Sweet Taste of Success
A big thank you to all those who volunteered their time and cooked, baked and donated lovely baked treats; and to those who volunteered their time to manage the cake stall last Sunday. We had a lovely sunny start to the day, and the event was a great success. All those lovely treats, beautifully packaged,…
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Sweet chefs at GAP
The Thursday/Friday GAP children have been busy refining their Austrian/German culinary skills. There are so many ingredients to learn the German names of, and to smell, examine, discuss, weigh, measure, stir, pour, and taste when baking at the GAP! The class really enjoyed making and eating delicious Kaiserschmarrn (literally translated as Emporer’s mess) and Apfelmus (apple…