Our Concept:
We work according to the concept of the Open kindergarten.
Open kindergarten means: Being open to ever new challenges and changes.
Being open to every child with its strengths, weaknesses, wishes and needs. Being open to the opinions and needs of parents.
Being open to the processes of cooperation between all those involved (children, parents, staff and sponsors).
Our kindergarten should be a place where children feel comfortable and enjoy the variety of activities such as playing, researching, discovering and learning, which makes many encounters possible, where one can experience community and build successful relationships.

An essential element of our open work is the equipment and design of the various play and functional rooms and workshops. 

Our range of rooms includes:

• Creative room and wood workshop, research room with children's laboratory and children's library
• Children's café and kitchen, building and construction area, with changing material offers
• Movement space
• Crèche room with bedroom, kitchen, sanitary facilities and pram room 
• Large natural outdoor area

A brief introduction to our facility 
We see ourselves as a "house for all children" in the sense of inclusion. Our pedagogy is based on the assumption: "It's normal to be different."
"Open" to us means first and foremost being open to ALL CHILDREN and their families. 
Our aim is to look at each child individually and to create the best possible conditions for the child together with the parents. 
We adapt our organization and structure to the changing needs of families. Our system is flexible and can therefore respond to diversity and special challenges. 
Our pedagogy is designed to make the diversity of children, families and employees "blossom".

„Open" means for us: 

• Participation - age-appropriate co-determination, participation and self-determination
• Competence - recognising, supporting and presenting the strengths and abilities of children
• Inclusion - participation of all children, breaking down barriers

This results, among other things, in an opening of the rooms or work in specialist rooms:

• Discovery zone: a space for exploration, building and puzzling
•  Paint workshop: a space for the development of creativity and personal expression with many different materials and tools
•  Library: a room with books and letters for joint viewing or for a quiet and concentrated atmosphere when reading aloud
•  Gymnastics room: a room for guided gymnastics lessons or exercise and free play if the weather is too uncomfortable
•  Room of wishes: a room that adapts to the children's needs - for role-playing, dressing up or project ideas
•  Kitchen: here the children can practise cutting techniques, discover new foods and dishes and make their first recipes on their own
•  Nursery room: a room for our youngest children, to arrive and feel safe and secure with age-appropriate suggestions and challenges 

KinderGARTEN is very important to us!

Our big advantage is our spacious outdoor area, with tall trees that provide us with plenty of shade in summer. In the hedges around the grounds there are numerous crawl paths, robber caves and secret hiding places. 
The wide slide, the big elephant seesaw or the double and nest swing invite you to play with each other, which is very important to us. Besides acknowledging the diversity and difference of the children, we are always looking for commonalities, community and interaction between the children. 
A climbing frame requires skill and balance. For the large, partly covered sandbox, the children find various toys and everyday materials for building, constructing and experimenting. The water playground is very popular with the children in summer. If the temperatures are not so warm, we enable the children - equipped with waterproof mud trousers and rubber boots - to experiment with puddles and mud. Thus our "garden" is used daily and is available at any time for the children who need exercise and free play. 
We are also happy to undertake excursions on foot, with the Nessi city bus line or on a bicycle to the nearby surroundings. For example, on sunny and warm days we like to refresh ourselves with a water feature at the nearby Brend. 
The kindergarten is located in the Brendlorenzen district - with short distances to the city centre of Bad Neustadt. We regularly explore the surroundings and visit the local police or help with the potato harvest on one of the fields in the Brender Flur. For example, a visit to the municipal library in connection with the establishment of our small kindergarten library was an important impulse for the children.

Our pedagogy

Our pedagogical actions are derived from our image of the child, i.e. we respect and value the child as an independent personality and accept it with its strengths and weaknesses. We grant the child an individual pace of development and pick it up where it stands, because every child is unique.
It is important to us that each child has a say in decision making, becomes independent, takes care of himself/herself, makes mistakes and learns, grows and grows up and acquires skills.

Our educational rooms                                               

The nature and aesthetics, the size, accessibility and variety of our bright rooms and the spacious outdoor area reflect our educational work and invite the children to play and research. The design and equipment of the educational rooms, as well as the extensive range of materials, have a great influence on children's developmental processes. 

Food in the kindergarten

We offer the children a daily breakfast buffet, a fresh and self-prepared lunch and an afternoon snack (contribution towards expenses: 2.50 € per day).

Projects and offers

The children meet in age-homogeneous groups once a day for dialogue, planning and implementation of activities.
There are various activities such as hiking, cycling, swimming in the Triamare or Brend, sledging, visits to libraries, theatres and museums, and much more. 
We plan our projects together with the children and take into account their interests and needs, e.g. fire brigade project, animal project, water project and much more.

Guiding Principles 
Children are independent beings with their own abilities and interests, as well as different talents and abilities.
We see ourselves as partners of the child and offer age-appropriate assistance in every area. The child should be encouraged and enabled to master new tasks in a self-confident and motivated manner and to learn necessary skills in a motivated manner.

Principles
Human dignity is God-given

The work of our institution is based on the basic statements of the Christian conception of man. 
Every person is "image and likeness of God". Created by him, he has his origin in God and thus becomes unmistakable and unique. This life given to man by God is at the same time his task: Everyone can and should form and shape his life. God keeps him in it and at the same time sets him free. 
Hence man cannot be adequately understood without the inclusion of the dimension of transcendence, of religion, which is fundamentally accessible to him and at the same time challenges him. Whoever conceals or even intentionally hides what is religious creates a deficit, a kind of existential vacuum, with which it is not possible to live meaningfully and happily in the long run. 
The Catholic kindergarten is a family-supplementary institution that works in a supportive, advisory, and holistic manner for the good of the child. 
Our task is to maintain, stimulate, support and promote natural joy of learning in relation to life.

To be God's image, to have the beginning and the goal of this life in God, also means that people can relate to each other and become open to the life that is God himself. To be open means to have the senses open to this world, since all human understanding and all human insight begins with sensory perception, i.e. the how of world perception determines the how of the thought structure and how the ability to experience and experience can develop.

The child is the focus of our work. We pick it up from where it is standing. 
The offers of our institution are therefore not value-free. They are based on the principles of Catholic social teaching - personality, subsidiarity and solidarity - as they are described in the mission statement of the German Caritas Association and in the so-called "red profile paper".
On the self-image of day care facilities for children in Catholic sponsorship" by the KTK Federal Association Freiburg.

Qualifications
- Felix - Award by the German Sängerbund for exemplary singing and making music with children
- SISMIK - PERIK - SELDAK: Observation in kindergarten (team training)
- Dialogue Education - Implementation of the principles of the education and training plan (team training of the State Institute for Early Education and the Bavarian State Government)
- Predicate Trendsetting - Award of the Diocese of Würzburg
 

Principles and objectives

Playing together, learning, living, believing, laughing

Our kindergarten is a place of life for children and parents, where they should feel accepted and comfortable with their different life situations. Our work is shaped by the Christian image of God and man and the church's sponsorship.
Our kindergarten also supports and relieves parents by providing professional advice on educational issues.
Our spacious outdoor playground and the renovated rooms with age-appropriate equipment offer the best development opportunities in the toddler and kindergarten groups. 
 
Our qualified staff is constantly undergoing further training and performs committed educational work. In cooperation with parents, age-specific concepts have been developed, from toddlers to school enrolment. These concepts are currently based on the needs of the local families, which are surveyed annually in writing. 

Educational work is relationship work
Reliable and trustworthy caregivers are of great importance for the development in childhood and adolescence, which is why the children are assigned to a home group with us. They experience a structured daily routine and receive an age-specific, comprehensive range of services through loving care.
 
Our function rooms are open, especially in the afternoon, for cross-group activities in the areas of motor skills, language, music, creativity, science and housekeeping.
 
Each child is unique and actively contributes to the daily routine of the kindergarten. We observe and recognise their strengths and counteract developmental delays. We promote the basic skills of the child, cooperate with specialist services and the primary school to ensure that the transition to school is successful.
 
Our pedagogical concept is based on the BEP (Bavarian Education and Training Plan), includes all areas of education and is based on the observation of the developmental stage and the needs of the children.
Educational processes take place during the entire kindergarten day. They are not limited to didactic offers of the educator or specific activities.
 
Close cooperation and an intensive exchange with parents are among our central tasks. We focus on the reality of the children's lives, relieving and supporting families. Regular contact and an open exchange about the personal situation are necessary in order to understand the child and act accordingly. The parental interview about the child's developmental stage on the basis of a written observation is standard.

This makes us special:
- We participate in the federal program 
     "Language charity: Because language is the key to the world" 
- Promote and accompany language development and is a central task for us to successfully integrate
- We go to the forest with the children from 4 years on for 14 days
- Singing and making music together is fun every day
- Our kindergarten has been awarded several times with the Felixplakette for exemplary musical work by the German Sängerbund.
- 14 - every day all children sing together with deanery cantor Matthias Braun
- We go to the parish bookshop for 14 days with the children from the age of 4
- Reading mentors open up the world of books to the children, through weekly visits to the kindergarten
- On Tuesday afternoon parents with small children are invited to play and get to know each other in the toddlers' group.
- We have a concept that is constantly being developed and lived out.
- Our qualified personnel has acquired additional qualifications, especially in the field of Montessori pedagogy
- We have developed a QM system for our facility, which is regularly checked and optimized.

We cook a warm lunch every day. This can be ordered by the day. The costs for this are charged extra. 
 

Our concept 
"We pick up your child where he or she is in his or her development and accompany him or her on the road ahead."
 
Educational work
Christian upbringing - The principles of faith of the Protestant Church are brought closer through religious units suitable for children. We celebrate festivals in the annual circle. In our KiTa all families are welcome regardless of their faith or origin.

Your child awaits you at our centre:
- Security
- Full board from our fresh kitchen
- Children's Bistro
- Herb garden
- Children's studio
- Theatre Group
- Outdoor watercourse
- Play with natural material
- Space to romp & play, experiment, learn & grow

That's how we work:
- Permanent caregivers
- Cooperation with other institutions
- Working in small groups
- Individual support
- Regular meetings and evenings with parents
- Inclusion　
 
Offer of the day care centre
Here you can open our flyer

Pictures: Hr. Gerhard Hagen (Gerhard Hagen Fotografie)​, Druckerei Lang Bad Neustadt

Our pedagogy - short and sweet 

- We practice a pedagogy of understanding instead of a pedagogy of wanting to change. Child participation is the basis of our daily work.
 
- We see children as self-active, competent researchers and thinkers and therefore create conditions for children to develop and unfold.
 
- We assume that education takes place individually. We set up our rooms as workshops so that children have many opportunities to deal with different materials and challenges in a self-active way.
 
- The educator consciously shapes the environment with incentives for the very young, but also in such a way that school children can still discover new things.
 
- For social learning, the children need to play in areas in which they can meet each other and try out different behaviour patterns.
 
- Education and upbringing take place all day long due to our open concept and individual care. Therefore, we can offer you flexible delivery and pick-up times as well as comprehensive all-day care.
 
- We make use of our large space and a wonderful location in nature on the outskirts of the city, as well as the short distances to the city. This creates a variety of movement, adventures and contacts with the public for the children.
 
- We see parents as educational partners and attach great importance to the fact that they feel accepted and heard by us. In a variety of ways we make the processes and actions transparent to the parents.

 Guiding principle
... playing and learning with all senses
        ... play together - learn from each other
 
In our kindergarten we want to offer the children a place where they feel comfortable and secure. Where they can have fun in the community, try themselves out and gain new experiences. A place where they can gather basic experiences for their future life.

Key aspects
In our institution the pedagogical focus is on language, music and movement:
- playing together
- talk and sing together
- deal with each other
- move together
The children are looked after in regular groups in our facility
 

Who are we?
Our after-school care centre is a pedagogical institution that supports and complements family education in terms of educational and developmental tasks.

Who are we there for?
Our offer is mainly aimed at children attending the primary school in Herschfeld.
Our guiding principles... what is important to us in our work together?
Every person is special, valuable and unique.
We are mindful.
We love what we do.
We deal with each other honestly.
Our trust in ourselves is a basis for our actions.
Our clear structures provide orientation and security.

Importance of our concept
We work according to the open concept, in which the children can develop and unfold freely.
Incentives in the individual rooms can be implemented, changed and further developed by the children.

Our workshops                            

• Role play room   
• Kitchen                      
• Playground                                                 
• Island of rest                          
• Workroom                        
• Gymnasium
• Sewing room  
• Building land          
• Creative workshop        
• Private homework rooms

Our concept
- Homely atmosphere
- Direct connection to the village community
- The localities (all around meadows, forest, animals, many possibilities in nature)
- Project work
- Forest Days
- Focus of the day nursery group: Work according to Maria Montessori
- Focus on control range: KIax approach
- The following structures are part of our work:

• Competence-oriented work
•  Regular (annual) development meetings with parents
•  Developmental observation according to Perik, Seldak, Sismik, Beller...
•  Portfolio work in the sense of a "learning folder
•  Familiarisation concept based on the "Berlin Model
•  Cooperation with the primary school in Brendlorenzen

 
Food in the kindergarten
Every day we have breakfast together in our bistro. Food is brought by the parents in weekly rotation.
Monday to Thursday we get our food from our supplier Apetito. Every Friday we cook in the facility ourselves.