Antje Bostelmann

Pedagogical Material

“The world is full of things and it is absolutely necessary that somebody finds them.” (Pippi Langstrumpf)

It is not always easy to find good pedagogical material. For crèche children, there is a real lack of inspirational play materials. This is reason enough for Antje Bostelmann to become active: In cooperation with the toy manufacturer Dusyma kindergarten materials, she and her team are developing pedagogical materials that inspire children to discover and explore.

Sorting tower

Play idea: Discovering, sorting, piling up and inserting things into openings are among the favourite activities of small children and the sorting tower can be used for all of these actions. High-quality manufactured shapes and rings made of different and largely natural materials encourage children to use their senses. The sorting tower helps small children from the age of one to advance their sensorimotor functions, their sense of touch, their fine motor skills and all other sensory perception. They can also use their mouth and tongue to experiment with taste and their oral sensory functions.

from 1 year

Hideaway box

Play idea: Crèche children love hiding things and letting things disappear. They repeat the same actions again and again with patience and perseverance: the ring, the chain, the piece of cloth, and other things are inserted into the box and it requires some skill to get them out again. This activity is pursued with wonderment and interest. While doing this simple activity, the children learn basic natural laws: for example, they learn about differences in size, and about whether something fits through an opening or not. Different materials and object permanence are explored: Do things still exist even if they are not visible? You can design the boxes yourself using coloured paper and your own motifs.

Age: from 6 months

Little bags of stories

Play idea: The little bags of stories have been used for a long time in the work of Swedish crèches. The colourful sacks made of satin and silk contain small wooden figures from stories, fairytales, everyday situations or songs, for example, from the “Bremen town musicians”, the play park or from popular nursery rhymes. Using the little bags of stories helps children to acquire important basic skills. Small stories are played out using objects that the children are familiar with from their everyday lives, from fairytales or from songs. This visual re-enactment gives the children emotional security – especially when repeated daily – and encourages them to play out the stories themselves. The little bags of stories are accompanied by a photo book from Antje Bostelmann, the developer of play ideas and founder of the educational organisation KLAX gGmbH in Berlin.

Age: The themes from the little bags of stories are suitable for children between 1 and 4 years of age. The little bags sometimes contain small parts that might be swallowed and should therefore mainly be handled by the adult carer.

Playing and sorting trays

These trays have been specially developed for small children. They are perfectly suited for transporting, stacking, sorting, painting, arranging, laying and as a surface and framework for many kinds of materials. Crèche children in particular will always discover and try out new and creative ways to use and play with them.