If you're like us, you've certainly been happy about a little extra light toward day's end. Don't forget to spring forward on Sunday and set your clocks one hour ahead.
Thanks for Reading
-Sam
Name our Birdhouse
The warmer, sunnier days mean we have started to welcome back some of our feathered friends. The front playground has been a popular place for visiting birds, and they are enjoying the covered bridge birdhouse and feeder. We're looking for a name for this unique spot, so calling all clever wordsmiths: We'd love your suggestions. If your child does not spend a lot of time on the front playground, perhaps point out the feeder in your comings and goings and see what they have to say. Send us your ideas!
Behavior and Development Series, Part II: Essential Life Skills
In Part I of this series, we examined some of the social and emotional development that occurs in the lives of young children. This week, we will follow up with the second objective:
2. Identifying the life skills children need to navigate the world be successful.
If we were to try and identify what attributes make for good people, it's likely we would have a whole host of different answers based life experience, culture, and a variety of other factors. But when it comes equipping young children with the habits of mind needed to succeed during childhood and beyond, there has been quite a bit of research dedicated to finding out just what those skills are.
Mind in the Making is an organization that "promotes executive function life skills" and aims to "share the science of children's learning." 1 Ellen Galinsky is one of the developers of this organization and the author of the book, Mind in the Making: 7 Essential Life Skills Every Child Needs. Both the organization and Galinsky's work are the result of countless amounts of both research and funding.
Galinsky identifies the following skills as key, and they are important components of both learning and behavior regulation:
1. Focus and Self-Control
2. Perspective Taking
3. Communicating
4. Making Connections
5. Critical Thinking
6. Taking on Challenges
7. Self-Directed, Engaged Learning
While this list leaves out some of the more obvious emotional skills that children should work to develop such as empathy, kindness and self-esteem for example, it gets to the heart of some of the behavioral challenges we can observe in early childhood. For instance, take a look at the first four skills listed above. Now, think of a child in an all out "meltdown" or "tantrum" state. In that highly emotional moment, the child is not able to control himself, focus, take perspective of the situation, communicate his needs, or make connections between his actions and consequences. And to stretch a bit, he's unlikely to be thinking critically either!
Establishing clear and consistent expectations early on is vitally important in fostering a child's emotional growth. Take the child who insists on having cookies for dinner. A two year old making this demand is likely to be dramatic - crying, stomping feet, pounding the table, and throwing themselves on the floor. But we expect a four year old's response to be more understated because they have developed the skills to understand the answer and the reasons behind it. The answer is still no when it comes to cookies for dinner in both cases, the outcomes very different. Without setting the boundaries early, that four year old will have a far harder time achieving the desired result of, "Hmm...no cookies for dinner...maybe I'll protest a little, but I'm okay...and I'll probably have an Oreo after dinner anyways."
When we explain to children the value behind these personal attributes, and just how to put them into practice, we are helping give them a greater understanding of who they are, and how to exist in their society/community in an acceptable way. When a child gains focus and self-control, challenging behaviors are more likely to diminish.
Our approach matters when we teach these skills. In the final part to this series, we will focus on clear and compassionate communication that allows adults to positively coach children, and help them to develop their emotional and social intelligence. Stay turned!
1 Courtesy of: http://www.mindinthemaking.org/about-us/
Classroom Happenings
Infant I: The class continues to work on building good sleep habits. Every week it seems that the babies are becoming more and more independent, and it's exciting to seem them meet the goals the teachers have set out. At this point, many of the children are able to put themselves to sleep! The children were able to get outdoors in the sun a bit thia week, which was a nice treat. The class also welcomed a new student.
Infant II: Curious children! Lots of wonderful time was spent outdoors this week. You may have noticed many metal pots, pans, cups and tins out on the playground, and that has made for a lot of digging, scooping and exploring with these new containers. The birds have also been making lots of appearances, and the kids were very excited to see them. Many conversations happened regarding birds and their sounds. We've seen some testing behavior in the form of biting recently, which, while upsetting, is a developmentally appropriate behavior for this age group. Additionally, it also could be indicative of teething pain/discomfort. The teachers are being proactive about preventing this behavior, and are talking a lot about biting. A great book to read at home is Teeth are not for Biting, the kids are reading it quite often and using the same terminology in the book to discuss biting.
Toddler I: We had another birthday this week; seems to be a bit of a season for birthdays in Toddler I in fact! Both finger painting and coloring were highlights of the week. In the stuffed animal basket, some new critters arrived, but there is still quite a bit of favoritism for both of the bunnies. In other animals news, the class still continues to talk about fish and their new fish tank. Hopefully the fish will be making an appearance next week. Recently, the class has been focusing on color. We now have several children who are able to correctly and consistently identify colors when asked.
Toddler II: As promised, we have a few pictures of the sensory table boat launch below from last week, be sure to check them out. Fruit Salad Friday included lots of variety, and the children took care of every last bite, with all children not only have second helpings, but thirds as well! The class continues to make significant progress regarding nap time independence, and along similar lines, the children are working hard at listening to their bodies and using the potty. Outdoors, the sleds are still a favorite, with children branching out a bit to check out the new wheelbarrow. And on Friday, some morning time spent inside provided the perfect opportunity to build a tent and pretend to go camping.
Pre-K: The class has spent time this week focusing on the concepts of kindness in both words and deeds. They have read many stories and had several discussions regarding feeling identification, friendship and fairness. The kids have been practicing ways to enter into play by using negotiation and their expanding vocabularies instead of resorting to extreme measures such as yelling, crying or pushing. Friday was a great example of the work done during the week. The class had an extended free play time with more complicated themes and no arguments. Throw that into the win category!
As Seen at MVS
Thanks for Reading
-Sam