History

Friedrich Wilhelm August Froebel opened the first kindergarten on 28 June 1840 to mark the four hundredth anniversary of Gutenberg's invention of movable type. Froebel created the name and the term Kindergarten for the Play and Activity Institute, which he had founded in 1837 in the village of Bad Blankenburg, in the small, former principality of Schwarzburg-Rudolstadt, Thuringia, Germany. The first kindergarten in the United States was founded in Watertown, Wisconsin by Margarethe (Margaret) Meyer Schurz (wife of activist/statesman Carl Schurz) in 1856. It was based on Froebelite principles that she had learned about in Europe. Schurz's older sister, Bertha Meyer Ronge, had opened "Infant Gardens" in London (1851), Manchester (1859), and Leeds (1860). Margarethe Schurz initially taught five children in her home (including her own daughter, Agatha) in Watertown, Wisconsin. Her success drove her to offer her education to other children as well. While Schurz's first kindergarten was German-language, she also advocated the establishment of English-language kindergartens. She is credited with converting Elizabeth Peabody to the Froebel philosophy at a meeting in Boston in 1859. Later that year, Peabody founded the first English-language kindergarten in America in Boston, following Schurz's model. The first free kindergarten in America was founded in 1870 by Conrad Poppenhusen, a German industrialist and philanthropist who settled in College Point, NY, where he established the Poppenhusen Institute, still in existence today. The first publicly financed kindergarten in the United States was established in St. Louis in 1873 by Susan Blow.

Function of kindergarten

Children attend kindergarten to learn to communicate, play, and interact with others appropriately. A teacher provides various materials and activities to motivate these children to learn the language and vocabulary of reading, mathematics, science, and computers, as well as that of music, art, and social behaviors. For children who previously have spent most of their time at home, kindergarten may serve the purpose of helping them adjust to being apart from their parents without anxiety. They are usually exposed to their first idea of friendship while they play and interact with other children on a regular basis. Kindergarten may also allow mothers, fathers, or other caregivers to go back to part-time or full-time employment.

Afghanistan

In Afghanistan, the equivalent term to kindergarten is کودکستان, pronounced as kudakistan (kudak – means child and stan – means land) and is not part of the actual school system. Children between the age of 3 and 6 attend kindergartens which are often run by government. According to law, every government office must have kindergarten area, in WIGB8v