Kindergarten

To complete yesterday's theme, I heard today that tomorrow is the 175th anniversary of the founding of the first "Kindergarten" in 1840.

Research on Wiki in both English & German was not clear on this and even within the one language seemed to have different facts as to who, when, where.

However it does seem that the word "Kindergarten" was first used by the German pedagogue, Friedrich Fröbel in 1840 to describe his first infant's school. Fröbel had amongst others, been a student of the Swiss, Johann Pestalozzi. Fröbel compared the need for children's early education to that needed to raise plants and I guess this theme is carried further in the also used "Nursery School".

In the last two weeks, we have had chicks hatching every few days but it is very chaotic, there being 6 brooding hens on 4 nests and a mixture of four bantams and two normal hens on a mixture of bantam and normal eggs. Just to make it worse, three of the bantams keep changing nests, normally when one of the others gets up for two minutes for a drink or food.

Luckily one of the bantams, as last year, had hidden in the horse stables and reared 8 chicks., We then moved her to the hen house but being an independent type she kept breaking out and going outside where the crows helped themselves to 6 of the chicks. Sadly since the forestry people cut down the Red Kite's nest, the crows have returned and until recently have been a plague. Seems their young in turn have now left the nest so they have not been seen for a week.

Because of the chaos and just the odd single chick being born, the other mothers aren't looking after them but remain on the eggs waiting for more. So after we discovered the odd one dead, we have been taking them away after 24 hours and been giving them to the bantam who had the "horse stable" batch, for her to raise. She has until now been doing a great job but slowly she is getting fed up with it. On the Blip, the far left black hen is the Kindergarten Teacher and far right her admirer, one of the cocks. Between them are chicks of various ages, from several weeks to 36 hours.

We will have to sort out the situation better. I think maybe the two normal hens should go in a separate fenced off pen where they can be in peace and get up and feed as they want. Also means any chicks have access to water/food which is difficult or even impossible on the boxed nests. It is essential the chicks learn drinking/eating as quickly as possible and only the hens, whether mother or kindergarten teacher can do this.

The German human Kindergarten teachers have been on strike the last few weeks causing chaos for working parents. Mediators have been called on, they made a decision, the employers accepted it but today the unions rejected it. However, it does seem they are going back to work while negotiations continue.

My daughter in Ireland with her two children has 10 weeks of school holiday ahead of her. Might get the chance to do some kindergarten work myself when they are over in a few weeks. Can't wait.