Kategori: Lahti

Asemantausta daycare centre

The overall experience was positive. All discussions were reciprocal. We learned about Norwegian early childhood education and compared it to our own. We also saw our own early childhood education from a new perspective. We noticed how we deal with similar phenomena in early childhood education in both countries, such as early childhood education and care, children’s mental health or need for support in parenting. The rest of the staff were friendly but rather shy towards the visitors. Only a few dared to speak in English, but otherwise they were interested in joint discussions. Pride in Finnish early childhood education has grown, and we can be grateful for things like the meals, cleaning as well as the planning, assessment and development time of teachers in our daycare centres.

Sari Launiainen, kindergarten manager

Ersta daycare centre

As an new experience, this was quite interesting. I was nervous about the visit beforehand, not least because speaking Swedish or English didn’t sound very easy for me. Similarly, traditional Finnish ideas surfaced about what visitors think of us and how our work differs from each other. It was so empowering to realize at the end of the day that I got through the day, even in my opinion, just fine. The guests seemed to enjoy themselves with us, and the best part was the numerous professional discussions, which brought up the fact that our work is not that different after all. To sum it all up: I’m immensely proud of myself for daring to step out of my comfort zone that day in many ways, and I think I experienced something that I wish many other kindergarten managers did. So I highly recommend this job shadow method!

Sari Kantola, kindergarten manager

(Photo: Tiia Naams)

Finland’s Independence Day, Finland’s national day, is celebrated in honor of Finland’s independence on 6th of December, 1917. Independence Day is a dignified celebration that involves remembering the war and the fallen. The day is associated with many annual traditions, such as the Independence Day reception of the President of the Republic since the time of the first President. Also parades and torchlight processions are held in many cities and communities, and a movie called the Unknown Soldier is shown on television as a tradition.

The 6th of December has been celebrated as Independence Day since 1919, when it became a public holiday. It became a paid holiday in 1929 and a public holiday in 1937. Independence Day is flag day.

Suomen itsenäisyyspäivä – Wikipedia

Many people watch the Independence Day reception of the President from TV and eat traditional Finnish dinner. It is a tradition to light two candles with blue and white color, to the window for the evening. There is also celebration receptions for the residents held in many cities and municipalities, and Lahti has one too.

In early childhood education we celebrate Independence Day on the day before that, Thursday 5th of December.

Some daycare centers have their own Independence Day receptions and a ballroom where everyone, children and personnel, dress up finely. They might even vote a president couple from among the children for the day. Having some kind of sing-along gatherings all together are also popular way of celebrating the Independence Day in Finnish daycare centres.

Often in we put on some decoration light strips and LED candles around the daycare centre and create nice and calm atmosphere. Many groups make hand crafts about the Independence Day, for example Finnish flags, maps of Finland or Independence Day candles, and decorate the walls.

Here in Lahti, we have also had Independence Day reception for Bee-Bot coding toys! They had a president couple from among the Barbie dolls, nice lightning, grafted Finland’s flags and got to wear beautiful children’s crafted gowns on them. Children put them to dance by giving commands to turn around again and again.

Here is a link to a song from Mimmit, which tells about Finland in Finnish and Swedish.

Mimmit – Suomi Finland – YouTube

In Finland there has been traditionally so called preschool one year before going to school. In august started national pilot which contains preschool also for five years old children so it will be two years in preschool. The pilot will last till 2024 and after that the government will evaluate if it will be part of the system permanently.

Lahti is one of the pilot cities and we have 11 kindergartens and about 300 children involved. For parents it means that they will get preschool for free instead of paying normally for day care. It will be interesting to see what results we will get from the pilot. In august they also lower the day care payments nationally in order to get more children participate and that also will easy the costs that parents pay.

Lahti is also participating study together with Finnish institute for health and welfare. We will study that what more healthier food in kindergartens will influence the health situation within the children. That is also very interesting study and a it has lot of to do also with sustainable development and we hope that it will also influence the values and thinking among children and their families.

Other changes that came to law in august were higher demand of ensuring enough people during absence of regular teachers and also demand for teachers to inform every possible threats for children’s well-being during the day in kindergarten.

Otherwise the virus situation is still there and during the summer the delta variant has increased infections. The kindergartens have been open and in case of infections we have contacted parents even during the weekends. That has been very stressfull for our leaders.

In this situation it was rational to postpone again our conference in Randers but we hope that situation is getting better when more and more people will be full vaccinated.

Best wishes and see you soon!

Ett speciellt år lider mot sitt slut och i väntan på det har vi möjlighet att i lugn och ro fira jul samt förbereda oss för ett hoppfullare nytt år.

I Lahtis började coronarestriktionerna i mars och under två månaders tid, fram till maj månad, uppmanades föräldrar, att i mån av möjlighet, ta hand om sina barn hemma. Rätten till småbarnsfostran kvarstod dock hela tiden. Antalet barn som deltog i småbarnsfostran minskade drastiskt och under våren deltog endast 20 procent. Under sommaren lugnade smittosituationen ned sig men på hösten förvärrades den igen. Internationellt sett har Finland alltjämt klarat sig väl men visst påverkas allas vardag väldigt mycket av coronan. Inom småbarnsfostran har det inneburit många restriktioner som ibland med kort varsel förändrats. Alla chefer har varit i beredskap även under helgerna för att möjliggöra snabb smittospårning om någon på den egna enheten drabbas. De första smittorna bland barn och personal inom småbarnsfostran kom under hösten och har alltjämt fortsatt från dess.

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