Getting to know you

Hi All,

The first week of school was wonderful.  Many parents and children were getting reacquainted with old friends and making new friends.  The teachers did an amazing job in creating a fun and exciting environment for your children to enjoy.  It was exciting watching children enter the classrooms and interact with all the materials the teachers had prepared for them.

As part of our "Getting To Know You" theme, children will have an opportunity to go camping here at school. Room 7 has been transformed into a camp site and fishing pond. We will be talking about family vacations and fun things to do with family and friends. 

All the classes will continue the theme of "Getting To Know You", emphasizing kindness, manners, family and friendship. Children three and under are mostly involved in parallel play and happily interact with all the materials at school. It is not a developmental expectation for the younger children to understand the concept of being a friend.  The teachers however, start teaching about friendship by helping children recognize other children's feelings, starting the sharing process, and modeling kind and polite words.

Teacher Sarah and Mary have some fun "friendship" activities lined up for this coming week.  This will be "Friendship Week" in Pre-k, starting off with discussions about who are our friends, do friends make you happy, can friends make you sad (angry, frustrated), what are some of the fun activities you like to do with your friends?  The teachers will support the concept of friendship by helping the children to recognize what makes a good friend and the different feelings they may have when playing with friends.

 Pre-k will be making a friendship salad and the children will be practicing and strengthening their small motor muscles when cutting fruit. The children will be working on math skills when dividing up the pieces of fruit (fractions), adding more fruit to the salad (addition), and eating the fruit (subtraction).  Next time your children eat crackers have them count out a certain number then talk about how many they have left as they eat the crackers.  You will be helping them to understand subtraction and learning one-to-one correspondence.  If they count incorrectly because they are talking too fast, just have them start over and slowly count and touch each cracker.  Children learn to count rote before they can count one-to-one.

The Pre-k children will also be making friendship bracelets, painting a circle of friends, (using hand prints) and reading "Rainbow Fish", a story about friendship and sharing.

This coming Thursday will be their first trip to the library.  Teacher Sarah and Teacher Mary had the children paint some book bags last week. The children will put their library books into these bags to bring home.

 All the teachers will  be talking about kindness, and how to use kind words with our friends. Take opportunities to point out kind acts during the day. Thank your children when they use polite words, when they follow your rules/routines, when they do not interrupt or just about anytime they exhibit positive behavior.  Often, we tend to point out inappropriate actions and forget to build and support the behavior we want our children to have. 

Children do not always want to play with each other and that is ok. It is our responsibility to teach them how to kindly tell another child that they do not want to play right now.  We also need to acknowledge the other child's feelings of rejection and help him/her express these feelings.  Help this child problem solve what he/she could do now.  This is a great time to suggest playing with another friend or getting involved in another activity.  Younger children are more easily distracted, while older children may just need your understanding and comfort.  

Sometimes a child will tell another child he/she cannot play in a certain area.  For example; "Sam, you cannot play in the boat, we are playing here."  Children try to test out their power and by not letting another child into their "area" they are being all powerful. We  just tell the child that children at preschool can play in all the areas.

 Keeping our statements clear and simple is the most effective way to communicate with young children.  Don't talk to them as you would an adult.  They just cannot understand concepts that are not black and white. For example, in the above scenario; "Sam can play in the boat, at preschool all the children can play in all the areas."  A positive statement telling the child what Sam can do, simply put and to the point.

MWF Teachers Lolly, Theresa and Daran will be playing activities with the children practicing their colors.  It is usually very easy to interject  color into play with children.  Instead of, "Alice you are wearing a pretty dress," say, "Alice you are wearing a blue dress."  "Joseph you have a truck", "Joseph you have a red truck."  "Henry, eat your "yellow" squash." 

Also, in the MWF Class, Librarian Allison, will be reading to the children during Exploration Time.

TTH Teachers Tammy, Karen and Theresa will be helping the children learn each others names.  In conversation we try to use children's names as often as possible.  The first several weeks the children will be learning the routines and the daily schedule.  We work hard to set up a nurturing, loving environment so all the children will adapt to their surroundings and feel comfortable at preschool.

All the teachers are excited to engage in an interactive partnership with parents this year.  We  want the children and parents to have a wonderful experience at WPNS.  Please share with us any concerns you may have throughout the school year.

Thank you for allowing us to be a part of your children's lives.

Director Karen and Teachers Sarah, Mary, Lolly, Theresa, Tammy and Daran