SHOW AND TELL
Bring a you might use to build a house.
Topic: Housing
Almost all creatures find shelter.
The value is collaboration, which means to work together for the common good.
For safety we’ll practice saying “NO” to things that would harm us.
Outside we’ll work together to build a house, maybe for an elf.
The songs we’ll be singing are Day-O, Do-Re-Mi, Home on the Range, and Red River Valley. We’ll also do patterned singing and clapping.
For creative dramatics we’ll think of lots of things about houses. We’ll also practice creative thinking like “how many things can a thing be?” Imagine that a coat can be a clothes thing, a warm thing, a soft thing, a blue thing, etc.
Our art activities are make a maze, paper roll houses, and explore animal houses.
For motor development, we’ll work on stamina by running and doing jumping jacks. For bilaterality, we’ll play balloon volleyball, imitate clapping patterns, and do the bunny hop.
ON THE TOPIC OF DISCIPLINE
Day after day we watch our parents struggle to impose order with their children. The basic issue is that adults are the ones responsible for deciding the way things should be, and the child is the one who is being trained to fit into our society. We have used a simple little formula for a long time that works pretty well. It’s from Dr. Thomas Phelan and it’s called 1–2– 3-Magic! It’s based on the principle that the adult is in charge, and it’s best for the child when that’s true. It starts with a couple of things that seem impossible for most of us to do: exhibit no emotion and don’t talk.
When dealing with kids’ problem behavior, it is helpful to put any problem into one of two categories before trying to deal with it. The reason is that the general strategies for handling each category are different. The two categories are:
1) START behavior, which are all the things you would like your kids to START doing, like brushing teeth, eating dinner, going to bed, and getting up in the morning.
2) STOP behavior, which are all the things you would like for your kids to STOP doing, like arguing, temper tantrums, screaming, and demanding.
In general, you will punish STOP behavior and reinforce START behavior. Since most of us know how to reinforce or reward (and we remember to do it), we’re going to talk about stopping behavior. The first rule is that you can’t show any emotion when you’re disciplining. Our preschoolers simply don’t know how to fit into society, and it’s our job to teach them. We must be totally patient and totally consistent. A child can’t function and we can’t be rational when we’re frustrated and angry. We’re won’t have any of these emotions when we enforce the behavior we expect early in the situation.
The second part of the method is to not talk. You say what you expect, you give a one- or two-word reminder and then you enforce. As your child gets older, you can say’ “That’s 1”, “That’s 2”, and finally “That’s 3”, and the child is expected to remove himself to your family’s time-out place for 5 to 10 minutes. At the end of this time, the child may return to the family or class activities with no discussion on the adult’s part. You simply carry on normal activities.
It’s that simple — and that difficult. You’ll find yourself discussing and getting frustrated. That’s when you go back to the basics and remember — no emotion and no talk. It really works, and when it works, you’ll find you have a lot more time for the fun stuff, like affection and stories and peace. When it’s not working, you’ll know you’re not doing it very well. That’s when you talk with us.
Ms Illira – We’d like acknowledge the passing of one of our infant class teachers Ms Illira. Ms Illira joined our team in July 2017 and cared for the students in our infant 2 class. Unfortunately communication breakdowns prevented us from sharing her funeral date. Her warm presence will be missed. We are going to commemorate the memory of Ms Illira with a special class project you can see Mr. Warren for details.
Valentine Preparations – We’ll have a quiet day for Valentines, but you can begin to prepare now. Every child will need a valentine for each child in the classroom. If your child can write his name, you might want to start labeling a few valentines at a time so he can proudly give valentines that he wrote to his friends.
Coming Up – Because we live with all the irritation of a major metropolitan area, we also have the delight of a major metropolitan area. Remember the Homestead Heritage Day at Jesse Jones Park on Feb. 10, Mardi Gras school parade on Tuesday February 13, and the following weekend begins Chinese New Year celebrations. All these are events our preschoolers can enjoy.
CLASSROOM NEWS
Stone soup was the story; all the students were attentive as the teacher told the popular tale afterwards each student put their contribution to morning snack in the large bowl. After nap time during afternoon circle Annabelle recalled the event and by telling her classmates, when asked the question, what can happen when everyone adds a small amount? Annabelle said “we can feed people who are hungry”.
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