Little explorers on workshop tour: preschool group from Kita Am See visiting Hörbert manufacturer Winzki

Little Researchers on Workshop Tour

Preschool group from the daycare center Am See visiting Hörbert manufacturer Winzki

Always on the lookout for new projects are the “little researchers,” as the preschool group of the daycare center “Am See” in Großbettlingen is called. On Friday, October 27, the children visited the Hörbert manufacturer Winzki in Frickenhausen.

“Two Hörberts are almost in use around the clock here,” reports Dominik Fischer, a supervising educator. Hörbert is a child-friendly wooden MP3 player. 22 children from the preschool group “Little Researchers” wanted to get to know Hörbert’s home and visited the Winzki company in Frickenhausen. Each device is crafted with a lot of manual work here. The wood comes from sustainable forestry. All components can be reordered or exchanged individually by the manufacturer. Company owner Rainer Brang wants to provide a “counterpoint to cheap imports,” which are mostly made of plastic.

“The children should develop a sense for environmentally conscious behavior,” explains daycare center director Erika Schreck the visit to the Winzki workshop. The little researchers prove their trained sense of environmental protection in a game prepared by Sandra Brang, wife of the company owner, for the young visitors. Based on pictures, the guests are to recognize materials and categorize them as environmentally friendly or harmful. Surprisingly, the five-year-old boys and girls succeed quickly.

Then it’s time for a workshop tour: The first stop is the laser machine, which simultaneously drills holes in nine wooden enclosures and burns the inscription “Hörbert”. The tour continues to the assemblers, who explain to the curious spectators how speakers, circuit boards, and buttons are installed in and on the MP3 player. Finally, the finished device stands before the children, just like they know it from their daycare center.

The daycare center Am See has been nominated for the German KITA Prize, among other reasons for hands-on research projects like the visit to the Winzki company. More than 1,400 daycare centers applied for the award. 30 of them proceed to the next round – including the Kita am See in Großbettlingen. From the group of nominated daycare centers, ten finalists will be selected in November, who will be visited and assessed by experts starting at the end of this year. The decision on who receives one of the five awards from the finalists is then determined by a combination of jury judgement and public online voting.