It’s hard to believe that the first month of fall semester is already over. The children are getting used to their new peers and routines. They are very busy with the materials in the classroom. Block area and dramatic play seem to be their favorite. In dramatic play the children are role playing different scenarios. For example: the children are pretending to be a mom, dad, brother, sister and baby. They are enjoying the variety of dress up clothes to extend their play. The block area also has shown a lot of interest. The children in Pre-3 are very creative and imaginative in their play. Some of the children have been creating football stadiums, basketball courts, construction sites and towers. We will continue to encourage the children to create by providing them with a variety of building materials.
We thought it would be helpful to let the parents know some of the things we do in our classroom everyday. Here are some of the things we are doing:
Morning Drop Off
We would like to thank the families that are participating in our morning routine. When you drop your child off in the morning we have a question of the day for the children to answer. They then get their bracelet from the basket, hang up their things in their cubbie, and say good-bye to their parent. This routine has really seemed to help. Please continue to do this routine with your child. We appreciate your help.
What zone are you in?
As we talked about during family night, we have been using this zone chart as a way for the kids to label their emotions and actions that go with it. As a class we have been reading a variety of social emotional books where we will stop during the story and talk about what zone the character might be in. Something important that the teachers stress is that it’s ok to be in the red, yellow, or blue zone. However we need to look at what we can do in order to get our bodies and minds into the green zone.
Clean-up song
We have been playing the “Sound of Sunshine” song to help the children transition to cleaning up. It’s amazing to see how the children hear the song and they start to clean up on their own without being asked. This might be a good tool to carry over at your home to help your child clean up.
Bracelets and buddy system
You may be asking yourselves “What are the bracelets for?” Well during the summer we noticed that there would be some areas in our room that would tend to get a little crowded. This left little to no room in the area to actually be able to play. We decided to do this bracelet system as a way to control the amount of kids in each area so that they are able to use the materials in each area appropriately. By doing so, we have seen an increase in positive interactions and a decrease in fighting over toys.
As a way to develop new friendships, we also started the buddy system. Each child was assigned a buddy that they get paired up with when going outside on the playground or on walks. This allows children that may not think to play with each other get to know one another a little more. This has also helped our older friends step into a leader position and our younger friends to see it being modeled.
We would like to thank the families that came to family night on October 20th. We hope you are finding the backpacks helpful and you are using some of the tools at home. Please remember to scan the QR code that was located at the front of your child’s backpack. We really appreciate your time filling the survey because we need your feedback and it helps the committee to plan more fun family nights and items that we can add to your take home backpacks.
If you have any questions, please feel free to talk with us.
Diane and Melissa
