For more variety in everyday life

Michl is delighted to uncover a picture of the bowling alley, while his older sister anni has discovered a cardboard box with musical instruments on it. Meanwhile, the youngest of the group, ida, is pensively looking at her cardboard box with dolls and teddies on it. The three siblings have made themselves comfortable with their mom katrin kolb in the playroom at home on this monday morning. The four sit at a table with a total of 32 pairs of cards from a memory game. For the parchen search, always turn over two cards in turn. With each new motif, the two girls and their brother gush: that's in the goldtaler group, that's in the garden, that's our gymnastics room.

"The corona crisis puts the children and their families in an absolutely exceptional situation", gertrud schubert, director of the catholic day care center for children st. Laurentius neufang, for sure. Many parents find it more and more difficult to organize their time at home every day. The kindergarten team has therefore come up with a series of activities for a creative pastime at home, including a family memory with kindergarten motifs.

For this purpose, the team took pictures of the exterior and interior of the facility and had a photo publisher make a memory with 5.5 by nine centimeter cards from them. All 60 families from which one or more children attend the kindergarten were presented with one copy each.

Play for the whole family

"It is very important for us to keep in touch with the families. We have developed innovative solutions to maintain the feeling of community", the director emphasizes. The memory is meant for the whole family. The children should remember the kindergarten while playing and tell their parents about their everyday kindergarten life.

That this is indeed the case quickly becomes clear to the kolb family. Five-year-old anni reveals how much she misses her friends marie, carla, antonia and lara. Her brother, who is two years younger, also hopes to soon be able to build with lego bricks again with his friends at the daycare center. Ida, who is just under two years old, has only been attending the nursery for a short time. "She had just settled in well. Then came "corona, regrets katrin kolb. The mother of three goes to great lengths to make her children's daily lives as varied as possible. She has also adopted some of the daycare center's habits – for example, the daily morning circle to start the day together.

In the beginning it was relatively easy to entertain the children and keep them happy. "Over time, however, this becomes increasingly difficult as their motivation wanes. They see the same people day after day and they miss their friends from kindergarten", she tells. At the moment, the weather was fine, so they could play in the garden. But when the weather has been bad for a long time, the ceiling has sometimes fallen on one's head. She is all the more grateful for all the nice ideas with which the kindergarten has surprised her from time to time. "We were always very happy when a letter arrived or a little surprise was hanging on the door, katrin kolb.

Among the nice ideas were, for example, an easter letter with a small craft suggestion, a hupfstrabe made by the team with colorful fields, which the children also know from kindergarten, and the family memory. Of course, moms were also remembered for mother's day. These children also received a small gift, as did the birthday children of the "kindergarten-free" children time. In addition, the staff called each family to find out how they were doing. With all this, the aim was to maintain contact with the families, to bring joy to both children and parents, and to support the parents in their daily lives to some extent.

Families show gratitude

"We have received a lot of very nice positive feedback from the families – little videos, photo albums or even letters in which the children report or show how they spend the corona time at home. We were very happy about that", says the director, who will be holding the fort with her team until we meet again at the nursery. There is currently emergency care here with a number of children that varies from day to day. In addition, the employees are still available by phone for questions and concerns of all parents.

The team's main wish is that the corona period will soon be over. They are all very much looking forward to being able to sing, laugh, chat, do gymnastics, handicrafts and learn together with the children in a fully occupied facility – and, of course, to play memory together.