This week in 3B we had a strong focus on people’s feelings in general, and how each child in 3B was feeling specifically. As the week progressed, we began to hear the 3B friends often mentioning their feelings to others. This was especially true when a friend was being too rough, not sharing, or not listening to another friend’s words. We also saw many instances in which friends were hugging one another, both in times of pure joy and affection, and in times when they were comforting a friend who may have gotten a little bump in gym or had their feelings hurt or “broken”. 3B is really responding to the concept of feelings in themselves and those around them. Empathy is growing every day in our classroom and we are so impressed. We are also emphasizing to the children how proud they should be of themselves when they pay attention to their own feelings, as well as the feelings of those around them. Because of these open interactions, we feel the friendships in 3B are only going to get stronger. Already we are seeing friends spending time together with many different friends throughout our days together.
One point we’ve emphasized this week is that it is natural to feel all different kinds of emotions, from happiness to anger to feeling temporarily shy to happy again. We are learning too, that even if we are upset now, in a few minutes we may feel silly again, because our emotions can continually change throughout the day.
In addition to 3B’s budding awareness of emotions, we are hearing friends use polite words more often during our time together. When children are asking for help, or to use a toy or camera, the word “please” is being used more commonly. During snack or lunch, we are beginning to hear, “Can you read a book, please?” instead of “Read a book!” We hope that these new kinder habits are showing up at home too.
3B had our first guest reader this week! We were so excited to have Mario’s dad, Arturo, join us on Friday to read to the class. The children had such a good time with him as he read two Pete the Cat books. Mario very much enjoyed having his dad in the room to share in some of his school day with him. All the children love these types experiences so much. Special grown-ups, please remember that we have an open-door policy and that we want all of you to come and read books, do art projects, cook; anything you would like to do, we can work out a plan. Just let us know if, or when, this is possible and we will set up a date and time that works.
