Grădinița cu program prelungit Perluțele mării

     The kindergarden is one of the best public early childhood insitutions in Constanta, Romania (with 8 classrooms and 230 children). It is a 10 hour, 5 day program that provides a creative, supportive, nurturing learning environment for children (three meals and sleep session available). The kindergarten provides extensive opening hours that take account of the needs of working parents. The kindergarten staff is interested in offering a high quality early childhood education and care to all children from age three to age five. There are 16 qualified teachers and one school psychologist.
       Established in 1963 as Kindergarten with extended hours No 11, it has been moved from its original location to some other different places. One knowing its story can call it The Travelling Kindergarten. In 2007 it was again moved to its actual 56 Mihai Viteazu Street down town. In 2009 the kindergarten is named Perluţele mării which means Sea Pearls. The new name of the kindergarten was chosen by preschoolers after a brainstorming activity. Pearl has become a metaphor for something rare, fine, admirable and valuable. Children are the most precious and valuable treasure of mankind.
School programmes aim to develop the social and emotional competence and promote the cognitive, language, literacy and numeracy skills of pre-primary children to provide them with a fair start in primary school. Our educational programs have been trying to promote science learning and create multiple and varied opportunities to engage preschoolers in science exploration and discovery. Children have a natural proclivity to observe, experiment, explore, learn, and discover the world around them. We encourage and support these basic abilities for science learning among children in the early years. The annual educational offer of the kindergarten offers English as a second language (ESL) at early ages (optional activities included in School-based curriculum), which are highly requested by the parents for their children.

The School Council, the Head Teacher, the teaching staff and the school community are involved in the school life and they work together. The families support the staff and collaborate in the projects. The School Parents’ Association supports the carrying on of different projects initiated by school and our local community to develop at our students creative and free personalities. 
          
     Constanta County is situated in southeastern Romania. It is bordered to the north by Tulcea County, to the south by Bulgaria, to the east by the Black Sea, and to the west by the Danube, a natural border.  Constanta is part of Dobrogea (Dobrudja) area which is an ethnic mosaic and a model of understanding multiculturalism. In Dobrogea, together with Romanian people here live 34 other ethnic groups (such as Turks and Tartars, Bulgarians, Greeks, Ukrainians), each with its specific tradition, culture and religion. Tolerance and understanding of those who are different is the only alternative that ensures progress and prosperity of the human community. It is important to demonstrate that in the classroom cultural diversity is recognized. Our students are individual and different. They belong to different ethnic groups such as Aromanians, Greeks, and Macedonians (40 preschoolers), Turks and Tatars (5 preschoolers). We also have a few preschoolers from the Moldavian Republic, Cameroon (Africa), Nicaragua (Central America), Thailand and Syria (Asia).  
      Constanta City is situated on the Black Sea Coast and the kindergarten is 15 minutes walking distance from the beach. Teacher and preschoolers often take a walk or have different extracurricular activities on the beach.