This week, we were excited to welcome many of the children back to school after winter break. As we move into the second half of the year, we are excited to continue working on new curricular endeavors. We will continue with the three different kinds of curriculum: class interest, paint, and social emotional learning. The first few months of school we focused on introductory aspects of these subjects while we transitioned into school and became comfortable together in class. Now that we are partway through the year, we will be able to delve further into these topics.
From September to December, we focused social emotionally on self-expression and self-management skills. We worked with the students on expressing their thoughts, emotions, and feelings through words and facial expressions. The students also spent quite a bit of time on doing tasks independently such as bathroom skills (rolling up sleeves, pulling up and down clothing, washing hands, etc.) and snack skills (putting away placemat, snack, bottles.
Looking ahead to January through March, we will move toward relationships. Though we have started this already, we will continue to think about ways to: communicate with our peers, develop and express empathy, show gratitude and forgiveness, and more. We’ve discussed quite a bit about taking our friends’ feelings into account with our actions and words. The children have had many conversations about getting consent from others before touching them (hug, high five, tap, etc.) The children have learned that sometimes their friends do not want to be touched, so it is best to ask before doing so, and that they should accept the answer and respond accordingly. An example of a conversation with actions that we have been modeling for the students is as follows:
Emily: JJ, can I give you a hug?
JJ: No thank you.
Emily: Okay. (Walks away)
Or
Emily: JJ, can I give you a hug?
JJ: Yes
Emily: Okay! (Gives gentle hug)
The students have been responding well to this dialogue, though we are working with the students on timing (asking before touching, not touching then asking.) We have reminded them that it’s okay if their friend does not want to be touched at that moment, they can either ask a different friend or wait until a later time. This conversation and others like it, we will continue to have throughout the coming months.
In terms of our classroom curriculum, we are interested in seeing where our students will take us in the upcoming weeks. Earlier in the year, we noticed an increasing interest in fire related activities. The students would often dress in fire fighter hats or costumes, read related books, and painted a box red as a firetruck. Over the next few weeks, we will closely examine and reflect on the interests of the students and find ways to expand their play into a curriculum. With paint, we will continue to explore and investigate paint in interesting ways, and thin about the different ways the students engage with paint and materials.
Highlights from this week:
· Painting the January background
· Drawing Self Portraits
· Car painting
· Walk