Kindergarten in German is Kindergarten

In Dallas, Charlotte had been attending pre-school four days a week at a small facility run by our church. She loved it. She loved her friends. She loved her three teachers. She thrived on the routine and was making great progress on her social skills.

When we came over for our visit back in February, we were excited to find a small international school just across the border in Switzerland which would support a global education, in English. It is also an IB school, so we knew the academics were going to be good too. When we visited, the staff spoke about that the students come from 31 different countries and that there are at least 29 languages spoken by students & staff. We were really excited for Charlotte to be able to grow in that community.

When we visited, it was the school’s ski break (yeah, that’s a thing here, you get a week in February to go skiing and then another week in May for Spring Break). But it allowed us to walk into all the classrooms and take pictures since there were no students on campus. I took a few pictures of the kindergarten classroom and play areas in hopes that Charlotte would also get excited.

You know what she was most excited about? The pirate ship. That’s what she talked about for three months. “I’m going to go to a new school with a pirate ship playground”

In fairness, I would too.

Fast forward to us living here now.

The school is year round, meaning they didn’t finish the ‘21-‘22 until the end of June then started ‘22-‘23 in mid-August about the same time US schools started. The school allowed us to enroll her early to finish out the last 6 weeks of classes so that she could get a little flavor for the routine and also make some friends. We thought that was a great idea to help her get settled in. So off we went to the unofficial first day of Kindergarten.

On her first day, we also happened to hit the monthly bake sale / PTA fundraiser so we ended up buying a brownie to celebrate our first day. Needless to say, she thought this was the best school ever. Also, please note the state of her knees at the end of the day - she had a GREAT day on the playground.

As we got to know the school more, we realized how much they taught through nature and exploring. The main lesson or “unit of inquiry” as they term it for the last six weeks was on mini-beasts (or small bugs as I eventually figured out). The class would often take a hike to explore a field and look at what bugs they could find. One day a farmer let them all pet sheep. Charlotte came home so excited that she’d found all sorts of flies. GRRRREEEAAAAT!

They also are not afraid to get messy. They filled the sand pit with water one day and let the kids play in the mud.

My washing machine will never be the same.

Potentially Charlotte’s favorite day was when they brought in a small pool and told all the kids to bring a swimsuit as part of PE. Bless the teachers who got them back after “swimming” and feeding them ice cream pops.

We’re excited to see where “real” Kindergarten takes her next year.