Schools or Kindergartens for a 4 year old

Hi,

We will be living permanently in Munich from July 2005 and I was wondering if any one can recommend a school/kiga for our (at that stage) 4 year old bilingual son. It doesn't necessarily have to be english speaking but should be of quality and not all this play until they are nearly 7 years old stuff that I disagree with.

Thanks for your help

PS. would also like to hear from any modern, lively, working/studying mothers with a child of a similiar age.

hi tara,
my daughter is 3 and a half, bilingual and goes to a german play till 7 kindergarten which I also disagree with. I simplyteach her at home. Already she is able to recognise all letters of the alphabet and write them. So I say do it yourself as German schools are just a big waste of time. Where are you from?

Germans don't start teaching their children till they're 7?!

Nope! All they do in kindergarten is play till 6 or sometimes 7. Then they stress them out for the next 4 years and then select who goes to the gymnasium, hauptschule or whatever. For a wealthy country the education system here sucks.

lucky german kids...

i started school when i was 3.

Not lucky at all. I teach my daughter at home.

yes, it's difficult to know what do to with the German school system as it is. I don't expect all work and no play at an early age, but surely learning to read and write at almost 7 is much too late. A child is capable much earlier. What do others think/do?

The problem is what happens to a home-taught child when he/she enters school. Then they are bored stiff.

From speaking to other German parents they seem to like the system here. my German mother in law actually asked me if I was 'intelligenter' since I went to school at 4. Cow. But what I do find some German parents complaining about is the amount of pressure on the kids oncew they start real school.

Also, university starts and finishes later so a woman is just about starting her career when thoughts of having a child start to come, whereas in UK/US etc she has already had several years in her career.

I am happy with my son's kiga at the moment but then he is one of the youngest there and so learns a lot from the big kids, plus he learns German there so there is plenty for his little brian to be getting on with but I am concerned how it will be in a few years.

I just can't believe this! Who are you to decide that ALL German Kindergartens are this way?? My two children have attended normal, city-sponsored Kindergartens here. My husband and I have been very pleased. They DO NOT play all of the time. Whether there is more play scheduled compared to an English or American Kindergarten, I cannot say. What I can say is that, my children, did, in fact, learn ABCs and numbers in Kindergarten. Countless other life lessons are also taught, so for you to just say that it is all play is nonsense. Please do not make such generalizations. It is beyond unfair.

Actually, I don't think that at any time I said that ALL kindergartens were like this. Infact, my question was asking for one in which children are taught reading and writing, so I must logically believe in the existence of one which operates in this way.
I personally feel that the limited amount of structured learning in the Kigas that I know of in Germany is simply not enough for my expectations of a child's development. Knowing only numbers (my 3 year old is pretty good in that already) and the letters of the alphabet is in my opinion at 6/7 years of old a waste of many children's strong potential for early learning. I feel that reading, writing as well as some maths and science can easily be learned before the age of 7 without any great stress to the majority of children.
Of course imaginative play, crafts etc. all are worthwhile but if I feel that my child is capable and willing to do more, why should I restrict him (as the German system does), only later at klgirl says to condense a huge amount of learning into a shorter period of time.
Added to the fact that school ends at lunchtime, I certainly feel that a little more structured learning at a younger age can only be a good thing.

@Tara Sorry.
I think we actually agree on this. I believe that a child has a much greater potential than should be wasted on play and crafts. Have you tried privated Kindergartens? I think it is wonderful to supplement learning in any situation with extra work and attention at home. I fear that many parents do not have this same attitude, and believe that it is solely the school's responsibility to teach a child. BTW, I did not mean that my children learned only letters and numbers at Kindie. This was just an example. Also, not all Kindergartens end at lunchtime. Children can begin as early as 7.30 and go until 12.00, 2.00 or 5.00. It is flexible, (assuming there are enough openings ) and I have found that since many children go until 2.00, the children who continue on until 5.00 get extra time with the teachers and assistants. My son had extra tutoring for problems with his grammar this way.

"... a little more structured learning at a younger age can only be a good thing."

Very well put!

Find one that uses the Montesorri methods. There are several and some are city and some are private.
There is some other competing whiny psycho-bable method that emphasizes strict and harsh realities no matter how young. I had a run in with my preschool over it. They kept bringing up this guys name and I kept telling them that I just don't care what he said. They wanted me to say "goodbye" to my 2yo son every morning and to make him cry so that he would get over it. I told them that at 2, he had not a clue on what time meant. He only knew that "goodbye" meant "goodbye" whether it was ten minutes or ten days. I told them that he would know when to say goodbye and that I wasn't about to push it. So, one of them made sure to say "goodbye" to me every morning that I dropped him off. I told her to stop it immediately! My son doesn't seem to like her all that much?

After about 5 months, my son said "Tschüß Papa" on his own and he loves going there. One of the other kids (whose mother accepted this load of crap) was still having problems a year later, but he has moved on to kindergarten and I can only imagine the trama he is having there.

My son attends an all day Kiga and there are considerably less kids there in the afternoon, so I think that you are right Amgarcon, that he gets extra attention there.

Is it diificult to get a Kiga platz i n Munich? Are there waiting lists? What can I expect to pay for a whole day space? Can they eat there? Here in Freiburg, I pay an incredible 110 euro/month plus 51 euro for food (all organic, oeko food). Compared to Canada/UK, this price is amazing.

Also, here in Freiburg, English is in most High Schools compulsary. Is that the case in Munich. And if so what do you do with your already fully fluent kids?

hi armgacon, your child must go to an exceptional kindergarten. if my duagther hears anything of abcs or numbers it is from the older children not the teachers.

Chocolate Butterflies is a German/English Kindergarten. How about the best of both Worlds? Let your child attend K-garten for the social stimulation in the mornings and home school in the aftenoons.

PM me if you'd like contact info.

Hi,

I am very satisfied with my kiga and the kindergarten my son attended/attents. They learn lots of songs, colors, they paint and they have fund and I think that fun is what kids in this age need. I don´t think that it will make you much smarter if you learn the whole alphabet and numbers at the age of 4.
I knew the whole alphabet and spoke a little bit italian and I could substract all the numbers by the time I started school.
At school, I was very very bored and I was a smartass and I don´t think that many kids liked me. I knew all the answers and it didn´t help me much in life - i am still not a milioner. So my thing is, let the kids have fun and be the same like the other kids. If you see that your kid have any special interests than we should give them our support in that but we should not force them to be something they are not...And I think that all kids are special in their own way

although i agree somewhat with the sentiments, i think it all depends on what sort of kiga your kids go too. some people i know have crap kigas where the kids dont learn shit including discipline, in others they are pushed forward. i also think 7 is too old, but you can pretty much make them take your child with 6. we did and it was the right thing to do, i would be very careful about teaching your kids everything before they go to school. one, you will teach them everything in english and they will have problems adapting the to german. two, they may get bored and cause a distraction in school, this will not be looked at very nicely and could be a disadvantage. what does pee me off is the amount of homework the little ones get, it seems strange, but it does involve the parents and thats cool. there are also alot of teachers in the state system who are 'montisorri' trained, so look around, but if your child is already in kiga, think about the consequences of breaking up their blossoming friendships. the german system on the whoe demands more from the parents, so a certain amount of sacrifice is important here, sports are done "so that the children who sit a home infront of the telly dont get to fat", to quote my sons teacher, but proper competertive sports are done at the local sports verein, which means you ferrying the kids around alot. it is also a good idea to get them into some sort of art training - schule der phantasie - as this gets the fine motor coordination working sooner. also see if your kiga or school does courses, we're in barvaria and its good for the kids that they can ski at five years old, and i think its great that my local school does a chess course; something to do on a rainy day, and great training for the mind.

I have my opinion on this but I shall comment at a later date.

Wrong. School starts at age 6.
It might seem like silly games and fun to you but it usually isn't.


I know exactly what you mean by that. Biting my tongue too.


Giving your brats a ride to the sportsverein is kind of counterproductive.
I wonder what is up with today's parents. When I was 6 I went to school on my own, by feet. No mommy giving me a ride every morning. And in the afternoon I met friends running through the woods, getting dirty, ruining clothes and brand new shoes, climbing trees, hurting ourselves, buying a pack of cigs and smoking them which caused us to cough our lungs out and made us sick, convincing us never to try them again. Two or three times someone broke a bone. Shit happens, all of us survived, and everyone learned a lot. Sometimes I was late back home and then, after a good oldfashioned talkin' to and promise to be on time from now on everything was fine again. Of course I went missing again a few days later, and the process would repeat itself, without me being grounded or similar bullshit.

Children were allowed to be children, got in trouble occasionally, and had to face the consequences of their deeds without overprotective parents shielding them from everything. When did we start to treat them like little adults, expecting academic achievements before they even enter school?

Well, as far as teaching your kids to read at 6 or 7 is absolutely absurd. I'm not saying teach them at 3 or whatever, but the earlier you start the more apt children are to retain what they have learned.


When we started getting all of these quacks out there that tell us that children have Attention deficit Hyeractivity Disorder (ADHD). Ok, I must admit I know some serious cases of children with this, but there are alternative medicines out there. However, I do not think they work nearly as good as the ones made by drug companies.

Not entirely relevant but still a good read...

Our baby cots were covered with brightly coloured lead-based paint, which was promptly chewed and licked. We had no childproof lids on medicine bottles, or latches on doors or cabinets and it was fine to play with pans.

When we rode our bikes, we wore no helmets, just flip flops and fluorescent 'spokey dokey's' on our wheels. As children, we would ride in cars with no seatbelts or airbags - riding in the passenger seat was a treat.

We drank water from the garden hose and not from a bottle and it tasted the same.

We ate chips, bread and butter pudding and drank fizzy pop with sugar in it, but we were never overweight because we were always outside playing.

We shared one drink with four friends, from one bottle or can and no one actually died from this.

We would spend hours building go-carts out of scraps and then went top speed down the hill, only to find out we forgot the brakes. After running into stinging nettles a few times, we learned to solve the problem.

We would leave home in the morning and could play all day, as long as we were back before it got dark. No one was able to reach us and no one minded.

We did not have Play stations or X-Boxes, no video games at all. No 99 channels on TV, no videotape movies, no surround sound, no mobile phones, no personal computers, and no Internet chat rooms. We had friends; we went outside and found them.

We played elastics and street rounders, and sometimes that ball really hurt.

We fell out of trees, got cut and broke bones but there were no lawsuits.

We had full on fistfights but no prosecution followed from other parents.

We played knock-and-run and were actually afraid of the owners catching us.

We walked to friend's homes.

We also, believe it or not, WALKED to school; we didn't rely on mummy or daddy to drive us to school, which was just round the corner.

We made up games with sticks and tennis balls.

We rode bikes in packs of 7 and wore our coats by only the hood.

The idea of a parent bailing us out if we broke a law unheard of. They actually sided with the law.

Our generation has produced some of the best risk-takers and problem solvers and inventors, ever. The past 50 years have seen an explosion of innovation and new ideas.

We had freedom, failure, success and responsibility, and we learned how to deal with it all.

Pass this on to others who have had the luck to grow as real kids, before lawyers and government regulated our lives, for our own good.

mine are not brats.

they're energetic noisy little buggers...


whats worse are parents who intervene in the arggie barrgie of playground fisty cuffs, declaring such bullshit as you shouldn't hit people blah blah blah. let kids sort their own shit out. if your son whacks somebody and then gets whacked back , thats his problem. (those who were with me on sunday know exactly how i feel about that)

and


its called being a child. they can't sit still for twenty seconds, and our sad lets-get-a-child-to-match-the-ikea-sofa society can't cope with this fact. what i find interesting is the more our society tries to keep the kids safe, ie indoors so they wont get dirty/ripped clothes/picck up swear words from fellow touch rugby players/kidnapped (delete as appropriate) the more this seems to be a problem. one of the biggest problems in schools/kigas at the moment is the gender bias. way to many female teachers/carers and unfortunatly way to many who believe that boys should act like girls. girls can sit much quieter than boys, they also have the sharpest bitchiest tounges, so boys who act more "boistress" are quickly classified as hyperactive, ie the blame is pushed onto them. my schoolmaster was ex RAF second world war mad fascinating sports man. if we got too much for him we'd have to go out and catch cricket balls for one hour. he also canned me for playing football inside.

great posts keydeck and gideon. we all grew up alright!

just for info...i think the whole play until your 7 is called the Steiner method. At least then you know what to avoid

So if the kindergarten system here is so wonderful, why is it that in a few years time, it will only be from ages 3 - 5?

So if the kindergarten system here is so wonderful, why is it that in a few years time, it will only be from ages 3 - 5?

Also we moved here at the end of March and by June my 3 year old was totally fluent in German and speaking better German than her German cousins (4/6). This is according to my mother in law. So if a child can learn a new language that quickly, why can't she start learning reading and writing? And with reference to the kindergartens themselves, what benefits are there to the child when 3,4,5 and 6 year old children are in 1 classroom together? The way I know it, children in kindergarten/preschool are grouped according to age.

Different times my friends, different times.
We had no Johnny Knoxville and Jackass showing us how to really get hurt. All we had was that coyote and the roadrunner, but there was no Acme store to go to to get all that neat stuff.

I agree with most of that when you are 10+, but at 2-5, they need to learn not to whack their fellow playmates. They will anyway, but this is the time to learn civility. Those that don't will become bullies until someone kicks the shit out of them and that is not a parents job. The parents job is to teach them not to be the bully in the first place, but how to kick a bullies ass!

klgirl,
What's this about Kiga from 3-5. What's going to happen to the 6&7 year olds?

hi tara, instead of starting real school at 6/7 they will then start at 5/6. also does anybody here what that OECD report on education say about Germany?

Well that's good news then. When does that start?

people its the system. like it or limp it, or pay big bucks for the munich international school. my sons teacher is very good, and as to learning how to read and write earlier, check what your knidergarden does for preschool activities. lets not forget that kids start things at different ages, and some kids speak, ski, ride bycycles, draw etc better than others at different times. the best you can do here is involve yourself with your kids education, get them playing competative sports (increases team awareness, winning losing etc), get involved in their homework, take them to lessons and let them show you where they want to go. the system here has its problems, but there again where is it the best? but the advantage here is that the parents are much more involved, well at least we are. my wife is on the pta, and we muck in when and where we can.
oh and eurovol, disciplin and manners are our responsibility too! but your right, social interaction is soo important, not achievements at their age.

Hi, myself and my family will be moving to Munich in January 2005. The plan is that our 4 year old will go to one of the international schools from September but we need an English speaking kindergarden until then. Can anyone recommend one?

The German school system is a joke...let's face it..if we want to make some changes, we have to initiate..For instance, not all kindergarten's offer the same programs, which means that some kids are exposed to more extra-curricular activies such as music, sports, pre-k learning, etc..And others aren't. Currently, I'm sending my 5 year old to a full day's kindergarten while I work full time, and then come home and try to teach him as well...

We must urge the schools for programs such as the ones I mentioned above, even if we have to initiate them. I'm hoping that the demand will get them in gear and try to do something new...Of course, we have many hurdles to overcome, especially as the Bavarian government would love to keep women at home to take care of the kids, thus limiting kindergarten places..I'm also sure this is the reason for such short school days...Absolutely Ridiculous

If someone has any feedback, ideas, contacts, etc...let's see if we can do something for ourselves and for our kids!

@spaceman

Recent research shows that age 4 - 6 is the best time to learn a second language.
Children find it much easier to learn from other children so why not put your 4 year old into a German kindergarten simply for the purpose of learning German. When kids can speak even a bit of German it makes it so much easier to take them to the playground, swimming pool or anywhere where there are other kids around. If they don't learn German it's hard for them to play with the neighbours kids. If you do decide to do this find a good Kindergarten that has some experience of taking non-German speaking children.

@ not in munich

Where did you get the '4-6 year old as the best time to learn a language' data.
In most language acquistion books they talk about in order to be 100% bilingual (although usually one language has a slight dominance) a child should be exposed to the second language no later than 2 years of age.

@tara
I can't remember exactly where I read about the research as I do read so much on this subject. It refers to second language acquisition, not bilingual from birth.

Sometime between the age of 1 and 2 there is a process known as babble drift. Children appear to be babbling nonsense but they are refining their speech and while a 1 year old can produce all sounds possible a 2 year old will only be producing those it is hearing in his/her native languages. It is therefore often said that a child who hears a language regularly before the age of 2 will be able to speak it with perfect pronounciation and be bilingual in the true sense of the word.

There is some recent research, and I'm sorry I can't be more specific than that, which indicates that between the ages of 4 to 6, when the first language is aleady established, there is a window of opportunity to acquire a second language very easily through exposure. The point is that after the age of six it gets harder to learn a second language in this way, although like all aspects of child development there is no cut off point, simply a gradual change.

@ Not in Munich

Maybe 3 year olds are too manic (mine is) and 7 year old are starting to suffer from plain old embaressment at trying something new.

Mine are 3 and 5 and both speaking German well in a good kindergarten where staff are experienced with kids who speak a different mother tongue at home.
This does help a lot, although there is no 'teaching' as such there is a lot going on to facilitate learning.

I think the mixed age group also has some positive aspects although I agree that for some to start school at 7 (which can happen if they have a birthday in July or August) is far too late.

you should check out MIS which is the Munich International School, also BIS the Bavarian International School, both are great although being a native english speaker I choose MIS! if u need more infor let me know!