Introduction
Greetings Pre-3 Families! It is SO hard to believe that we are almost at the end of our year! We have so enjoyed working with you and getting to know all of you and your amazing children! We also wanted to thank you for taking time to meet with the both of us for Parent Teacher Conferences. We enjoyed talking with you all. Here are some happenings in our classroom!
Social Emotional Skills
We have had an eventful couple of weeks for our children. We are getting to that point of the year where everything is wrapping up, the kids are sensing that change is coming with the end of the year and with new summer classrooms and classmates coming up, that comfort level with us is there, and more! With these upcoming events, we are noticing that our listening skills have been challenging for all of the kids in our classroom. We are noticing that the children have been doing lots of boundary pushing and seeing what they can get away with! We are also noticing that there has been a level of unkindness and hurtful words amongst the children. We are seeing with this that quite a few of our children have been using phrases like “You aren’t my friend anymore,” “You can’t play here,” “You can’t come to my birthday party,” etc. We have also been noticing that the children discovered tattling as well and have been wanting to talk about small problems instead of trying to work it out with their classmates. We think it is safe to say that a lot has been happening! We have been trying to brainstorm ideas on how to help the children through these difficult moments. The biggest thing we can do is talk with the children on their level and ask them open ended questions. Doing these kinds of things allows the children to see that you are listening and hearing what they have to say about a situation. One of the activities we look forward to incorporating more is a classroom puppet, named Grape.(The children came up with his game). We will use a Grape to demonstrate and role play what unkindness may look like, or how to listen to a classmate and what a conversation may look like! Incorporating that imagination piece and making the learning process fun will encourage the children to learn these skills. Please find the following links below to help practice at home!
https://www.positiveparentingsolutions.com/parenting/get-kids-to-listen
https://www.parents.com/kids/development/social/teaching-kids-to-be-kind/
Coping Skills
We have also been working on our coping skills as well. We have put together a feelings check in and coping tools folder so the children can acknowledge their feelings, work to identify how big the problem was or is, how to calm their bodies down and to talk to themselves in a kind manner afterwards to build their confidence. So far, it has been working and the kids have enjoyed being able to pick a way to help themselves through their emotions. Using this tool has helped the children with their problem solving skills as they try to decide how to help themselves. Problem solving in fact is another skill we are learning in our classroom as well! We have been working to encourage the children to work things out amongst themselves and give them prompts to use as they work through any issues. Please see the link below for this tool if you would like to use it at home!
Feelings and Coping Tools Lap Book Calm Corner Tool.pdf
