Today was a really special day. We visited one great preschool – Freire. The first thing I was impressed was the 
formidable yard that belongs to the preschool – it is like you are in the park. And the kids are really involved with the development of this park – they made a pond, they playing there, they observe the animals. The second great thing was the architecture of the building – the classrooms have a second floor and it’s made like this especially to develop again the way of children’s thinking – to give them the opportunity to see from different levels the same things. Also, they have a lot of internal windows to have more light and because the transparency is a value of this approach. They have transparent doors because of the visual communication. They keep on being open for the entire and the city, the community. The building of preschool Freire have an ecological vision and is created as a result of the collaborative work of bio architects, pedagogista, and ateliarista. They wanted to create welcoming place for the autonomy of the kids. And another special thing is that each classroom has its own atelier.
After I became a mother, for me the food that I give to my daughter has to be really special, homemade, bio, clean, for sure without white sugar and salt. So in this preschool, they almost are a mirror of my requirements. They do homemade food, it’s healthy and when we was there it’s smelled so good… And the next good thing was that the kitchen staff is really important part of the whole staff. The kitchen is the atelier of tastes, of smells, of seasons, of colors, of materials.
Also, we saw gorgeous classrooms, very clean, well organized, full of kids each of them doing something. And they were so autonomous. They have the freedom for so many choices – they played, they worked with clay, they read books, they arranged numbers and letters, they danced and they delivered and served the food.
And this preschool was so welcoming that we didn’t understand where passed the time for our visit.
I can’t wait for the toddler-infant center visit! ~ Beti Gershom, Early Childhood Director, Gan Balagan Sofia, Bulgaria
