The implemented curriculum is our Project Work with a Puppet whose central element is the pedagogical puppet and its story, which unfolds during the whole year.
Every school year, we start to write a new, unique episode of implemented curriculum, which is created during the annual Project Work with a Puppet (PWP) by all the educators and other staff of the kindergarten in collaboration with children and their parents. The key elements of PWP are the pedagogical puppet animated by an educator, and its story that unfolds throughout the whole year. The puppet and the story have special pedagogical function. Their creation and functionality reflect the needs of an individual annual project. On one hand, the puppet is our protagonist, supporter and long-term motivator in the learning process and on the other hand, the literary-didactical story is our plot and means for achieving the goals, vision.
The literary-didactical story within the PWP project enables the children to discover the puppet’s problem gradually and to face various challenges. They gain positive and negative experience; they discover new things, reflect, learn and develop emotionally, intellectually and socially. In this way, we teach children how positive and negative experience can help understand oneself and others so one could perceive the problems as challenges that can be resolved.
With the desire to help the puppet solve its problem, the children face concrete problems and look for innovative and useful solutions. Children discover and experience the subject holistically. They learn in a natural way through real life situations and personal experience. Thus, learning is active, situational and reflective. Children develop their creativity, innovativeness, capability to solve complex problems, communicative skills and thinking strategies. They gain knowledge about the reality and develop understanding of the world.
The activities are carefully planned, implemented and evaluated. They are carried out in an open learning environment that encourages children’s creativity and innovativeness.
