THE THRILL OF THE ARENA
SHOW AND TELL
Bring a picture of a plant we eat.
Topic: Plants
How plants work
The value is responsibility, which means to take care of something of value. A part of that is to take initiative, which is to think and act without being told.
For safety we’ll practice handling ourselves if we’re in a fire.
Outside we’ll play the clap game and hold the balloon up.
The songs we’ll be singing are Edleweiss, The Green Grass Grows All Around, Here We Go Round the Mulberry Bush, Consider Yourself, and Oh, What a Beautiful Morning.
Our art activities are fancy plants, nutty pets, adopt a tree, nature sculpture, and nature patterns.
Creative dramatics will be acting out escaping from a fire.
For motor development we’ll build coordination by playing bean bag partners and space circles. For body development, we’ll work on postural response with rocking horse, ball pass, rolling the ball, and quick stand up.
THE THRILL OF THE ARENA
A child slipped and cut his chin this week. Mom was terribly upset, but once the cut was referred to as a “warrior’s wound”, the child wanted to show every one. It is such a paradox that in this world when we are exposed to effort, error, rejection, hurt, and pain that we emerge with feelings of competence, strength, maturity, independence, personal power, and high self-esteem.
Through every child’s development, he faces many new experiences that offer an abundance of failures as well as successes. Because these events are initially unfamiliar and require new skills, the child may fear them. This fear is instinctive, meant to make us more alert and our muscles more responsive. With the adult’s instruction and encouragement, the child is able to confront the fear and penetrate the barrier it creates. For example, when a child stands on a diving board for the first time, fear causes her heart to pound and freezes her feet to the board. But with the parent’s instruction to hold her nose and jump big and the security of knowing the parent is right there as a safety net, the child jumps. And then she comes bobbing up. She won! She met the dragon and she won. The fear is dissolved, and she understands the exhilaration of participating in life. So she runs around to jump again, and the parent is filled with pride, connectedness, and maybe a little regret.
So how can I answer that mother who is concerned about a cut on a chin? Encourage your child to explore and to do. Let your baby crawl and feed himself. Encourage your toddler to dress herself. Allow your preschooler to decide whether or not to wear coat. (Feel free to insist that he takes his coat even if he doesn’t want to wear it.) Avoid negative labels for any person, including “shy”, “stupid”, or “cutie”. Use positive labels that she can be such as “brave”, “intelligent”, and “caring” liberally. Teach your child to think for himself, and be an example yourself. Do not create monsters to control your child, like the store clerk to make her behave at the market, the monster in the dark to keep him near you at night, or the dog that might bite. Encourage your child to take the more difficult road sometimes, and talk with him about how you stand up to an unruly neighbor or the obnoxious parent at soccer practice. Teach your child how to make the right decision for himself, and praise every positive move in the direction toward the values you know are right for your family. With every failure comes learning, and with every success comes exhilaration. Then our children will grow up living life fully and competently, giving everything that life demands of them.
This Week
Important Fire Safety Training – We cycle through various aspects of safety training every month. This month we’ll be talking about being safe in a big fire. It’s a scary subject, and the children will be acting out scenes that might occur if they were in a fire. This helps us get a sense of control for emergencies, but you’ll want to be sensitive to your child’s reaction. If you want to know specifically what we’re teaching, ask to see the enrichment curriculum.
classroom news
Giving hugs is catching on in the toddler class. After seeing Michael greet his teacher with a hung almost every day the other students decided to join in on the greeting ritual. Jocelyn enjoys working with the shape sorting work this work will help to improve finger dexterity and also help hone her fine motor skills this work also helps with handwriting and using scissors. Nathan works on improving his fine-motor skills, concentration, hand-eye coordination, and visual perception of dimension while working with the knobbles cylinders. By working with the tongs Ashlyn is developing the strength and coordination in the small muscles of the hands – the muscles responsible for cutting with scissors, grasping a pencil, and writing. Popular circle time stories this week were; “Hands Are Not For Hitting” and “Teeth Are Not For Biting”.
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