- (+30) 23510 31111
- info@platon.edu.gr
- Ganochora - Katerini, Greece
Day Care - Kindergarten
Experienced teaching staff supports and creates a flexible and friendly learning environment, which seeks to ensure the conditions for the all-round development of children, cultivating their creativity and autonomy, activating their thinking and allowing them to experience the joy and enjoyment that the acquisition of knowledge can offer.
Successful connection of play and learning is considered extremely important in the nursery and kindergarten. Through play, children can explore the environment, experiment, solve problems and try to solve them and interact with other younger or older children or adults.
How It Works
The transition of children to kindergarten
The inclusion of the child in kindergarten is an important transition, both for them and his family. In fact, because it coincides with the first separation from the familiar persons, this experience is particularly important.
The child's experience during kindergarten is substantial because it can affect his / her subsequent relationship with the school environment. Thus, special emphasis is given to the adaptation of children, since attending kindergarten is considered a process of adaptation to both the school and the social environment.
The teacher facilitates all the children in this process, recognizes their difficulties and responds to their needs, so that the experience from kindergarten is interesting and enjoyable.
Parents can be valuable helpers, as on the one hand they can provide extremely useful information for their children and on the other hand they can extend the efforts made at home in the kindergarten area.
Curriculum
Our kindergarten work program aims to support the comprehensive development of the potential of all children.
Language
Toddlers become familiar with the language in order to acquire knowledge, skills and attitudes, which have to not only deal with the language system itself and language communication but also with their personal and social life.
The language is an integral part of the child's language. It helps the opening of the preschool color to transcend and shape the experiences, to interact with its peers or even the citizens, to meet and do and do something.
Mathematics
The Mathematics program for preschool age includes all the axes of mathematical concepts and processes designed for the unified mathematics education. Kindergarten mathematics helps the child to develop concepts and processes that objectify his experience and allow him to know, deal with, interpret, understand and control the world around him effectively. This is the expediency of mathematical education in general.
Personal and Social Development
Preschool is crucial for building identity and building relationships with the wider environment.
Personal and social development is a key goal of preschool education and a prerequisite for the child's response to various cognitive stimuli. It reflects the need for a holistic approach to dealing with the child, which aims to form an integrated personality of the individual, which meets personal needs and meets the requirements of the environment.
Natural Sciences
The natural and biological world, together with the social environment, is a primary source of experiences for preschool children. The involvement of preschool children in the Natural Sciences contributes to:
- exploiting the curiosity and intrinsic motivation of young children to explore the world around them,
- to support scientific literacy so that they can systematically explore and understand key functions, solve problems, form a critical attitude and make decisions that support the interdependence of science, technology and society,
- to develop a positive attitude towards science, to organize experiences in a systematic way and to realize that science is a cultural product in constant evolution.
Computer Science
In the context of the daily activities of the kindergarten, the children come in contact, learn, get acquainted and understand basic functions of ICT. aiming:
- the search, organization, management and production of information in multiple forms, the development of ideas and personal expression and creation,
- communication and collaboration,
- exploring, experimenting, discovering and solving problems in all disciplines and
- understanding the role of digital technologies in modern society and culture.
Environment and Education for Sustainable Development
Environmental Education is defined as "education for the environmental" or "education through the environment".
The adoption of environmentally friendly behavior and action results from the development of similar attitudes and values. Education from an early age can facilitate the development of positive attitudes and values, in acquainting children with issues related to the natural capital of the planet with attitudes and actions that preserve natural capital and physical balance. Of paramount importance is the initiation of children into the sense of "belonging" to the environment, the cultivation of the perception that each person is part of the environment.
Arts
By participating in the arts, preschoolers develop the skills of creative and critical thinking, problem solving and communication. These capabilities can be applied to other learning areas helping to improve performance in them.
Fine Arts
Teachers gradually introduce the child to the field of Fine Arts through the independent engagement with various methods of artistic expression following the pedagogical approach "Artful Thinking" of Harvard University.
Theatre Education
The art in the kindergarten program, maintains the mood of children for discovery and play, seeks to support their transition from free play, where the action is shaped in a natural way, to the progressive acquisition of elements of dramatic language. Thus, theatrical education allows for more conscious designs that respond to the specific conditions of action at the same time, while at the same time supporting the development of children's critical ability and their ability to solve problems.
As children engage in creative activities related to different forms of dramatic art, they have the opportunity to express feelings and ideas, take initiatives, collaborate, co-decide, think critically and seek solutions, approach conventions and how with which artists interpret the world utilizing dramatic language.
Music
In kindergarten, music, like other creative means of expression related to the arts, gives children opportunities to perceive the beauty that exists in life and the opportunity to express in different ways and through their ever-increasing understanding of the world around them. . Children explore and produce sounds, sing, sleep to the beat, dance, play musical instruments and create compositions.
Music activities introduce infants to alternative ways of expressing and communicating. Through listening, composing and performing, children express and understand musical ideas.
Physical Education
Physical education in kindergarten aims to help children love active play, learn rules and develop behaviors that will allow them to integrate harmoniously into school life. The development of a love for movement, fun from play, the development of communication skills and cooperation is what is required of the child's participation in motor activities at this age. The success of these goals largely guarantees the smooth psychosomatic development of children.
Connection of School - Family
The family has an important place in promoting personal and social development, as it is a key source of experiences that contribute to the formation of personal characteristics and the acquisition of skills and values. The daycare center and the kindergarten in the way it interacts with the parents and the stimuli it provides, complements, enriches, supplements and expands the child's experiences in the family. The promotion of the child's psychosocial development is therefore more effective when the teacher cooperates with the family, thus strengthening its function.
The cooperation of the teacher with the family is of particular importance for the personal and social development of the child because:
- A sense of security and trust is created in both the child and the parents.
- Mutual information helps the child to better understand.
- Practicing skills in both environments is more effective.
The child's experience during kindergarten is substantial because it can affect his / her subsequent relationship with the school environment. Thus, special emphasis is given to the adaptation of children, since attending kindergarten is considered a process of adaptation to both the school and the social environment.
The teacher facilitates all children in this process, recognizes their difficulties and meets their needs, so that the experience from kindergarten is interesting and enjoyable.
Parents can be valuable helpers, as on the one hand they can provide extremely useful information for their children and on the other hand they can extend the efforts made at home in the kindergarten area.
Communication with parents
Systematic communication with parents is a necessary condition for the development of collaborations. So the kindergarten:
- schedules meetings with all classroom parents as well as telephone communications
- keeps a communication notebook, which he carries daily in his bag
- holds informative meetings with experts on topics of interest to parents
Activities
Celebrations in Kindergarten
Kindergarten celebrations are events organized either on the occasion of a pleasant event, e.g. on the occasion of the children's birthday, or on the occasion of a celebration or an event important for school life (eg Christmas celebration, the completion of a work plan or the celebration for the end of the year).
The preparation of the holidays is not detached from the daily pedagogical work in the kindergarten, on the contrary it is a part and continuation of it.
The most important thing for a school event is not a good final presentation, but the activation and maintenance of children's interest, as well as the opportunities that will be given to them for creative expression and enhancement of their self-image.
Lending Library
Reading fairy tales aloud to children is one of the most important and beloved activities that take place in the Kindergarten since the students:
- become familiar with complex problems of space and time, existence and non-existence, with rules of behavior and interactions with adults.
- use fairy tales as metaphors for correlations and compositions
- develop behaviors associated with early literacy, that is, learn how to hold the book, recognize the cover and printed reading text, as well as what is the appropriate reading time.
- perform better in enriching their vocabulary, developing the ability to understand texts and decoding written language
For the above reasons, our kindergarten has a lending library.
Every Friday children borrow from the school library a fairy tale of their choice and on Monday they present to their classmates their impressions from the book they read
Foreign Languages
English is taught intensively (four hours per week). The program aims at the good learning and use, written and oral, of English, laying the foundations for obtaining a language proficiency certificate. At the same time, in the last two grades of primary school, the teaching of a second foreign language of the students' choice (German or French) begins.
Participation in the NSRF Program
The kindergarten (children aged 8 months to 4 years) of our school participates in the action "Harmonization of Family and Professional Life" funded by the NSRF. Through the action, the beneficiary parents are given a voucher that covers the tuition fees for the upbringing, care and feeding of the children in the kindergartens.
Applications for participation are made electronically on the website of Ε.Ε.Τ.A.Α. (www.eetaa.gr) where interested parents fill in their details on the special platform. After the examination of the applications, the voucher is granted to the eligible parents.
The registration of children in our structures is completed by presenting the voucher to our school.
Summer Program
The school continues to operate during the summer months with summer educational and sports programs.
Thus, children have the opportunity to make creative use of their free time and through aν enriched program of activities they acquire knowledge in a pleasant way and develop their sociability.