It's that time of year again....the time of year that germs love! Since the stomach bug, fifth disease, strep, the flu, and the common cold are making their rounds through the school and city, we thought this would be a good time to really teach our kiddos how to prevent the spread of germs! We spent last week learning what germs are and how they spread to make people sick. We learned how to catch the germs in tissues and our elbows, when that is more convenient. We learned the importance of throwing the germs away and washing them away. But....the concept of a germ is hard for a 4 or even 5 year old to understand....we can't SEE germs....our hands don't FEEL or LOOK dirty....cough and sneeze droplets dry pretty quickly....are germs real???? Well, let me tell you, two days after our apple experiment, we could see the effects of the germs. After a week, well, YUCK is the best way to describe it. The first two pictures are from only 2 days after our experiment. What is that red spot growing??? Yikes...we didn't have red on our experiment last year. 3 out of the 4 Pre-K classes did the experiment this year and we ALL had red spots. The 3rd picture is 1 week after the experiment.
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I am currently reading the book, Managing Emotional Mayhem. This is a book written to go along with our Conscious Discipline program. I may come back to update this blog as I read further. Some of the information in the Introduction was so good, I had to share! :)
The author of this book has laid out some goals for establishing self-regulation within our children. To start, adults must: "1. Develop our own self-regulatory skills. 2. Develop greater awareness of ourselves and children, including identifying emotional triggers and accurately naming the feelings involved. 3. Respond to children's acting out and emotional upset in an attuned way at the moment the event is occurring. 4. Coach children to independently use the self-regulation process." The goals for our children: "1. To recognize they have been triggered and begin the self-regulation process. 2 To begin calming themselves, creating the opportunity to self-regulate. 3. To name their feeling states and to be able to recognize the feeling states of others. This skill is the foundation for the development of empathy and compassion. 4. To select and conduct calming and/or engaging strategies in order to shift from an upset state to an optimal learning state. 5. To learn how to address the upsetting event with greater life skills and solve their problem. 6. To develop social awareness, responsible decision-making and communication skills aimed at fostering healthy relationships and goal achievement." Another take away from the introduction is to change the idea of "discipline disruptions" to "teachable moments". This is why preK is so important, we are here to teach and guide students how to communicate, make decisions and problem-solve. If your child makes a poor choice at school, you may not always hear about it. These "teachable moments" need to be addressed as they happen and do not always require a call or note home. Happy National Teddy Bear Day! We had so much fun bringing our favorite teddy bear friends to school today!
We played games, read books, and sang songs with our teddy bears. Each teddy bear visited Doc Tucker for a check-up and some visited the Beauty Salon. While the students were napping, the friends snuck out to the hallway to read and play! (pictures below) Check out our Gallery page for more pictures from Teddy Bear Day! |
AuthorKatelyn Stephenson, Archives
February 2017
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