Our children will start kindergarten in 6 weeks and I would like to ask you what they need to bring. 2 days a week they stay at school, on day is the forest day, another is the swimming day and another is the sports day. Could you please advise if they need some snack, drink, colours, etc? I have the telephone of the teachers but we can't communicate effectively, yet.
If you mean the local swiss Kindergarten (as opposed to pre-school daycare) then your kids need indoor shoes (slippers, slipper socks, crocs...) that are left at school to be worn indoors, they need a snack for mid-morning (must be healthy, fruit, veg, crackers, brown bread, nuts..... they are not keen on dried fruit or bananas). Some Kindergartens you can take your own drink (no juice, no fizzy, no sugary drinks) but at my daughters the kids just take a plastic cup which stays there all year and they get water to drink. Apart from that my daughter doesn't need anything else for a normal Kindergarten morning. Wood day means that you send your kid dressed in appropriate clothing for the day (they go all weathers except thunderstorms!) so if its raining kit them out in rainjacket and rain trousers, if its snowing then snow clothes and boots etc. Swimming just send them with a bag containing the swimming costume, towel and swimming hat (if they have long hair). Sport day, they take their PE clothes in a bag with trainers or PE slippers and change when they get there. My daughters teacher will send a note a few days ahead if there is anything extra that they need for any activity. Hope this helps, I just based it on our experience, probably all Kindergartens have slight differences. If you were meaning preschool then this will be no help at all!
Thank you so much! This information is really helpful as now i have some time to get all we need. Yes, I mean a local Swiss Kindergarten. The daily schedule is very stimulating and adequate for their age!
I am curious about the reasons for them to not be keen on dried fruit (raisons? apricots? figs?) and also as to why they not keen on bananas?
But I am vey used to schools and childcare centres that ban nuts due to the severe possible reaction for any highly allergic child who may come into contact with them.
OP. some kg's also like each child to keep a pair of gumboots ( wellies, galoshes) at school.
I would also check out the bag situation before buying any sort of school bag - it seems that there is some social pressure towards enormous backpacks in some places, whilst these are frowned on in others.
On wet days, lots of young children wear light, waterproof, often bibbed, overtrousers for outdoor activities. Again, check that out first.
My daughter loves the Swiss Kindergarten, she is in the 2nd year. She loves the wood days, swimming and PE and just the regular days. She also gets a german lesson once a week during school time where they take the foreign kids out of the class in a small group. They play out nearly every day and one thing I was told was "there is no such thing as inappropriate weather, just inappropriate clothing" as far as playing out in all weathers so make sure of what clothes you send them to school in! Also the kids are strongly encouraged to walk to school without parents - so that takes a bit of getting used to - but my daughter loves that she gets to walk alone or with other kids and here it is normal that they do it. They should also get given a lutski(don't know if that's how it's spelt as it's a swiss word!) which is a bright orange fluorescent traffic safety goes over the head thing. The Kindergarten kids have to wear them en route to and from Kindergarten and if they are outside school going swimming, to the woods etc. Another thing is on birthdays, the birthday kid is allowed to take the snack for the whole class, and then cake, cookies etc are allowed into Kindergarten!!
Dried fruit and bananas are apparently too high in fruit sugars that sit on the teeth too long! My daughters first Kindergarten teacher didn't allow either dried fruit or bananas at all. Her second teacher allows them once a week.
The school bag situation apparently begins with 1st Klasse (after Kindergarten years) where you have to have the correct kind of backpack (which cost about 80fr or you are a social outcast!!) Can't wait to spend that on a school bag for her next year! Kindergarten doesn't seem to have any particular bag code, anything goes!
Here in London when in the nursery times they used to give children dried raisins which have lots of sugar and stick a lot in their teeth. After parents complain they stop doing it. So I guess the banking in dried food is exactly what you are mentioning.
Well, will have to watch out about the back pack in two years them! At the moment we have over one year of Kindergarten and I would like to get things from the UK as it will take a while until I find where to buy things from.
I need to ask about German courses. We don't know any German although we're taking weekly classes since January. I hope our school can help on this. I should inquire next week.
If the reason of not being able to communicate is your current location or language, please PM your questions and I can make the call for you on Monday.
Otherwise there are already great advices mentioned.
Best of luck with your move and in advance welcome to Switzerland.
The Kindergarten will probably send you a letter listing the stuff you need - it isn't much really, PE Kit and slippers that stay there and a healthy snack each day - unless it is someone's birthday when cakes are brought in by the birthday child for everyone.
I have found the Kindergarten very helpful and happy to communicate with me - if you want to call them do so outside lesson times! HAve you got the teacher's e mail - might be a good way to say hello?
i know this is going off the subject a bit but i found it interesting reading when u said about he dried fruit and bananas, also the nuts. I work in a kindercrippe and did advise that all nuts be taken away because of nut allergies and one of the workers who thinks she knows all said that those allergies dont show up on babies/toddlers. so they discarded my advise and still give the children nuts, i really worry as i know what happens to a person with a nut allergy. I am a fully qualified nurse and because i dont hold a child care cert they think they know better then me, been trying to find info on the net to back up my advice but can not find anything simple enough,
1) the children will come home for lunch as kindergartens dont provide a lunch cover, unless you have a kiga which has a lunch club (which you have to pay for)
2) i would be surprised if they go swimming at kiga age unless its got its own pool
3) the schooling is very different to UK schooling so be ready for this as it can take some getting used to. such as:
- not being allowed to walk your children kiga
- kiga year 1 & 2 doesn't generally involve any direct learning so this can be frustrating if your children have already started to learn to read / write.
In our out-in-the-sticks town the 2nd year Kiga kids go swimming - they go on Friday afternoons on a 2 weeks on, one week off schedule. They take a school bus to the pool which is about 15 minutes away...But again, it is only the "big" Kiga kids.
Regarding the banana and dried fruit - this is only in some kinskis - and even then it is only some teachers. My son had one teacher who thought they were the work of the devil and another who was very laid back about it all - as they job shared it was quite a task to remember what not to give him on what day
Incidentally, a dear friend who is an ace dental hygenist here in Basel shares the opinion that dried fruit and bananas (more dried fruit really) should be avoided at all costs and if it is to be eaten, only eaten at meal times.
Well, my son's kindergarten is fine with bananas, juice and dried fruit - which is a good job as otherwise my son would eat nothing. Some places have rules, some are strict on them and others are not. Most times our kids eat in the playground where they aren't supervised anyway.
Also crocs would not be allowed at ours as slippers - they have to be "fitted" - our school list says "must not fall off when dancing" (how cute!)
The bag situation is only important at primary school age - at kindergarten most have a kindergarten bag - which is very small and just fits a snack box in and is worn cross-body - this is so it doesn't interfere with the lovely fluorescent saftey V that the kids get to wear. The hard giant rucksack is for school (primary school) and is an absolute must at that age.
Our kids also had to provide a painting apron, but I know some schools provided that for them.
Normally the school would issue a list prior to school starting of all the things the kid should bring.
My friends KG is super-strict on the snacks and issued a list of acceptable foods which did not allow any dried fruit, any processed meats like salami sticks, no salted nuts but regular nuts were ok, no biscuits other than the dry darvita crackers, bread could only be brown and with a healthy filling. Pieces of fresh fruit and vegetables were fine- particularly carrots, celery and fennel.
I think my son would have starved if he had gone there!
However hard I try, I just can't imagine packing a kid of mine off in the morning with a piece of fennel, unless they were off to learn how to roast a trout.
We are going to arrive just one week before starting school at the beginning of June so with all the fuss of the moving I won't have much time to go shopping. Anyway we'll do our best.
Also, are trainers allowed for outdoors?
Thank you so much for all the super useful replies!