We survived our second week together! We had a truly
fantastic time this week, too!
We’re still learning routines and procedures. These things
take time, and I’m sure we’ll have plenty of practicing and reviewing ahead of
us. The kids have been doing a great job so far though. We focused on circle
time manners this week. We watched a super cute video called Can You Teach My Alligator Manners?.
(You can find it here, if you are interested in watching it at home.) We
stopped as we watched and talked about what the alligator was doing that wasn’t
okay and how he could change.
After we finished the video, we played a fun game to
practice our circle time manners. I asked a question and rolled a ball around
the circle to give each child a turn to answer. The children knew it was their
turn to answer the question when the ball was in their hands. While they
waited, they practiced their circle time manners; they sat on their X’s,
watched the person who was talking, and waited for their turn to talk. They had
a blast with this game!
On Thursday, after practicing all week, we made a list of
circle time manners. The kiddos came up with everything I had hoped they would
think of. Our four big rules are: (1) Wait my turn to talk. (2) Sit on my
bottom. (3) Raise my hand. (4) Sit still. We’ll read through these rules every
day, and I am sure circle time will be a breeze very, very soon!
Another highlight from this week was our snap paintings on
Thursday. I read about this art project on another preschool teacher’s blog and
thought it sounded like a blast. I was right! Here’s what we did:
I stretched rubber bands around a cookie sheet, slid a piece
of paper under the rubber bands, covered the rubber bands in paint, and let the
kids snap away. This was a great fine motor exercise. The biggest challenge for
them was holding on to the pan with one hand and stretching the rubber band
with the other hand. It took quite a bit of strength for them to do this. Of
course, the fact that they were splattering themselves (and me) with paint
made it all worth it! I'm hoping to get these paintings hung up on our art wall this weekend. Please come take a look at them!
We’ve also started to jump into some more academic areas.
We’ve matched letters, sorted shapes, and practiced writing our names.
Next week, we’ll be focusing on friendship manners. I’m
going to introduce my absolute favorite friendship technique – buckets! I’ll
share more about this next week. I cannot wait to share this with your
children!
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