The Finkenau music kindergarten in the so-called “Schanzenhof” follows the principle of “musical immersion”. Every day, the nursery and kindergarten children of the day-care centre immerse themselves in a “musical bath”; interacting with music is playful and natural. Due to a close collaboration with the State Opera and the Philharmonic State Orchestra Hamburg, the children receive visits from instrumentalists or singers twice a month. The children are made familiar with the world of classical music at an early age this way.

The studio “Bei den Pinguinen” is a meeting and educational workshop for people from 2 to 90 years old. The large, bright studio room offers a printing press, tools and a large variety of craft materials along with large walls for colouring on. The spacious floor area and terrace in front of the studio are also used for arts and crafts. Exhibitions, celebrations and projects regularly take place on the premises.

The children

Children have a very natural strategy to explore the world. They absorb it with all their senses. In the studio they are able to meet their need to explore and experiment with colours, tools and materials. In all they do, it’s the creative process that matters – the artwork as the end product is of secondary importance.

Studio management

The studio is run by Silja Breckwoldt. The studio and workshop educator has been working with children at Stiftung Kindergärten Finkenau since 1995. Her creative workshops have varying focuses and are geared towards children and adults. Silja Breckwoldt also offers further training for Finkenau’s qualified educators on a regular basis. She says: “In each person, there is immense potential for creative ability. The aim of my work is to recognise, preserve and promote this potential. I want to stimulate the curiosity, joy of experimentation, thirst for knowledge and creativity of the children and adults in different ways.”

Courses offered

• Courses on various subjects are held for Finkenau’s children’s groups.
• For Finkenau’s qualified educators, there is training on the subject of aesthetical education.
• In agreement with the studio, “Bei den Pinguinen” can also be used by groups of students from the Fachschule für Sozialpädagogik Hamburg (Hamburg Technical College for Social Pedagogy).

All interested parties are invited to contact Silja Breckwoldt for more information about the studio.

The Synapses research laboratory can be used by all facilities of the Stiftung Kindergärten Finkenau. The vision multiplier of the “Haus der kleinen Forscher” (Little Scientists’ House) Sönke Frahm is available to support the educational staff.

In Synapses, the children can try out things with water, colours, sounds, numbers and letters. An adjacent garden offers space for exploring nature. Insects, beetles, leaves or trees can be observed and scrutinised more closely. Microscopes with computer connections for large pictures are available for this purpose. The research lab was backed by donations from Philips as well as the Asklepios Klinik Barmbek hospital, which provided laboratory equipment from their former pathology department.