Pipes Project

Friend "Sandwich" engaged with these pieces of pipe for quite awhile today.  After identifying these new toys in the Toy and Puzzle Area during Greeting Time, he knew exactly what he wanted to do when it was Work Time!  His plan was to go and work with pipes.  He figured out how to connect them on his own.

We talked about how pipes bring water to our homes, like the kitchen sink, bathtubs, toilets, and even the garden hoses.

We used these pictures during Recall Time to invite Friend "Sandwich" to tell his friends about his work.  After completing his pipes project, he said, "Ta-da!  Come take a picture!"  During Recall Time he told us about how this pipe system is for the sprinklers.

Cool engineering brain right?!

Toddler Aggression: The Reasons and the Responses

Toddlers are super cute, but they can be super hurtful as well!  There are several reasons that toddlers behave aggressively, and being a sociopath is typically not one of them!  ;)  Take a breath... when your small child hits, they are very much like most toddlers out there.

Although feelings are always okay, certain actions are not because they are hurtful.  As teachers, caregivers, and parents, we need to respond to our toddler aggressors in a way that helps them develop prosocial skills.  To do this, we need to determine the function (the why) of the behavior.  Depending on the child's motive in the situation, our response to the child must differ.

Below you will find different strategies for responding to aggressive behaviors according to the behavior's function.  Be prepared to use many strategies with the child.  Be ready for it to take a few months for the child to incorporate new replacement behaviors.  Be patient, with yourself and the child.

Attention Seeking

• Young children figure out right away that hurtful actions get a lot of attention from grownups!  (We naturally want to prevent other children or ourselves from getting hurt right?)  Negative attention is still attention, and counts to the young attention seeker.
• Strive for five: for every one criticism/correction/redirection you give, strive to find five positive things to also share with the child.  ("Yes!  Your hands are pinching play-doh!  That is a great choice.  You look like you are having fun.)  This does two things: the child feels capable of making good choices, being a nice friend, and that you care about him/her.  Additionally, it helps you maintain positive feelings toward the child and avoid the rut of, "Sigh.  Why do you ALWAYS hurt people?!"  Likely, the child does not ALWAYS engage in negative behaviors and pointing the positives out to the child helps you as the adult remember this too.  CONNECTION.
• Respond to the victim first.  "Are you okay?  Let's get you... cleaned up, back on your feet, etc. Did you like what happened?  Let's tell your friend that..."
• Respond to the aggressor second.  "You pushed... (enter hurtful behavior) your friend.  You were upset... (enter applicable emotional label) and didn't know what to do."  
• Be sympathetic so the child is able to hear your message.  If you are angry the child will be defensive or possibly afraid.  The brain will not be able to incorporate the next part of the exchange as readily due to that stress.
• Continue: "You MAY NOT hurt your friend.  That is NOT okay.  You may do... (this or that) instead.  Let's practice that now."

Sensory or Motor Seeking

• The growing child's body craves movement and challenges!  This is one way both hemispheres of the brain learn to communicate and synchronize.  We want children to learn about their bodies, the environment, and how to interact with the people and the world.
• Hitting, kicking, and throwing are developmental milestones that we expect young children to meet, and they will typically practice these behaviors until they achieve mastery.  In certain circumstances, it is very appropriate to hit, throw, poke, pinch, or kick.  
• Redirect hitting/kicking/throwing/pinching behaviors from peers to play-doh, instruments, pillows, beanbags, balls, and/or toys where it is okay to hammer.  
• Redirect biting to chewable jewelry.

Undeveloped Social/Emotional Understanding

• Because children this age are so young, they haven't yet learned to distinguish the idea that people and animals are different from objects because they have feelings.  They haven't learned perspective-taking yet, and so they are unaware that they might be hurting a friend and that friend has different feelings about what is happening than the instigator does.  This lack of social/emotional development (which is totally NORMAL for this age!) can lead to treating friends as objects.
• This behavior might look like spontaneous, unprovoked injuring of another person.  Small children find that peers respond consistently to pain with howls, crying, etc. in the same way that maracas respond to shaking, piano keys respond to hitting, and pegs respond to hammering.  The aggressor is enjoying the consistency or sound of the response because they don't understand that what they are doing hurts.  People are not instruments or toys, and people have feelings.
• To teach social emotional awareness, try this: "Look at your friend's face.  That's sad (hurt, angry, etc.- label the feeling)  They didn't like that.  To help our friend feel better, we need to apologize.  Say, 'I'm sorry I hurt you.  I will use soft hands next time.'"
• Outside of the conflict, intentionally plan opportunities to teach social emotional awareness: 
• sing "If You're Happy and You Know It" with different emotions.  Use dramatic facial expressions for each feeling and invite the children to do the same.  Explain what caused the feeling: "I am sad because biting hurts!  I hurt so I cry!"
• read books and point out the faces and feelings of the characters, explain the cause and effect of those feelings in the plot
• play with the mirror- children like making faces in the mirror, use this as an opportunity to talk about feelings versus body parts and features
• role play- pretend to be an animal or person, act and talk the way someone else would
• connect with past experiences- "Remember when your friend hit you and you were really sad?  That's how Johnny feels right now."

Undeveloped Communication Skills

• Toddlers have better RECEPTIVE language than EXPRESSIVE language.  This means that they understand what you say a lot more than what they can say themselves.  Let's face it, actions come out faster than words at this age.  Even if the small child knows what to say, s/he may forget to use words in the heat of the moment.  
• Teach social and problem solving language.  Intervene when a child makes a grab for a toy in another's hands and prevent a potential fight.  Prompt the child to use words, "You want that toy.  Let's ask first before we take: 'Sally, can I have that cat?'  'Oh, Sally isn't done yet.  Sally tell her, 'You can have it when I'm done.'"
• Teach and model the words for sharing (using the toy together at the same time), trading (exchanging a toy for the one you want), and waiting for a turn (eg. using a timer).  Resolving problems with these tools demonstrates respect for other's feelings and fosters positive feelings between friends.
• Practice taking turns in speaking and listening.
• Use consistent language with the child so they learn what your words/instructions mean: "Use soft touches" or "Your friends like nice hands..."
• The younger the children, the simpler the language (both vocabulary and number of words)

Undeveloped Executive Functioning

• Executive functioning skills are higher level brain functions.  They allow you to choose your response instead of responding with emotion.  They allow you to delay gratification.  They allow you to make plans, and review how they went.  They allow you to use logic amongst other things... and they are continuously developing in a person until s/he is a young adult.  Therefore, we cannot expect young children to cope with the environment and people in the same capacity as an adult.  But we CAN support the development of executive functioning skills within the child.
• Be consistent with redirection and consequences.  For example, the child might need to lose privileges if s/he is repeatedly acting in hurtful ways.  A logical consequence is that the child must walk away from the activity where the hurtful behavior was occurring.  Perhaps the child requires the use of a time-out or calm-down place.  Remember that negative consequences cannot be the only response to replacing these behaviors with positive ones.  
• It is critical to maintain a positive relationship with the aggressive child and be the child's "safe place" while providing consistent redirection and consequences.  When the child decides that s/he is "just a bad kid" or that the teacher "can't be pleased" then s/he will likely stop trying to improve.  Don't create a self-fulfilling prophecy for the child.
• Maintain proximity to help the child in the heat of the moment make the best choice instead of waiting to clean up the aftermath.
• Let age and maturity work magic on your efforts.  It will happen for each child at a different time in a different way.  Every day, every minute, YOU get to help build this child's brain.

DIY Cheapest Lightbox Ever!

Light tables are amazing to play with!  Shapes and colors just seem brighter, clearer, and more magical on the light table.  But they are often SOO expensive!  Here's how we made ours for Harmony's House, for less than half the cost of buying one new.  :)  You might already have some of the materials at home.

What you need:

• 1 clear plastic box with lid- I used this box because it was transparent but the lid was almost completely free of bumps and ridges, and better for building and playing
• 1 can of white spray paint
• about 4 button lights (more or less depending on your preference)  
• batteries for your lights

What you do:

1. Spray paint the interior bottom and sides of the box.  Why white?  It will reflect all wavelengths of visual light, and minimize light escaping out the sides and bottom of the box.
2. Lightly spray paint the interior side of the lid.  You want the most light to come out the top of the box to illuminate your light table toys, but you don't want to be blinded looking directly into the lights.
3. Install batteries into button lights.
4. Determine how many and where you want to place your button lights inside the box.  (I used four lights, evenly spaced from the four corners of the box.)
5. Turn lights on, click lid into place, and start playing with toys!

Pumpkin Spice Sensory Math

You cannot say that math stinks at Harmony's House!  We have been using the pumpkin spice rice to develop math concepts here at school for the last two weeks.  Some of our learning objectives have been to explore volume with measuring cups, funnels, and bottles.

Some friends worked around the Explore Table for an additional 15-20 minutes following the introduction in Small Group Time.  It was fascinating to pour rice from one container into the other.

 Funnels make filling things with small openings (like the bottles) much easier.

Sometimes our Small Group work was to find shapes hidden in our rice.  Then we sorted them by color, yellow or red.  This was so exciting to unearth the hidden objects and practice saying shape and color names!

The last day we had counting bears hidden in the rice!  The challenge after finding the bears was to organize them into families: "red bear families" or "small bear families" etc.

The children had to look closely at the bears' sizes because the medium and big bears look similar at first glance.  We had lots of conversations about size during this activity.

Most of our friends made bear families according to color, but some organized the bear family by color and size order as well.

Then everything got dumped back into the Explore Table for further play for anyone who wanted to continue this work during Work Time.

The Hot Days are Almost Gone

We are looking forward to fall, but since we have a few more warm days we are squeezing in as much water play as we can.  :)

The outdoor Mud Kitchen also continues to be a hit!  So much sensory, scientific, mathematic, and culinary experience is going down here.  It's no wonder the children are totally absorbed in their work.

Sometimes mud is the best part of childhood, right?  ;)