Create and Learn!

Our school friends have been expressing their creativity in so many ways!  It's amazing to see them build their brains in SOOO many wonderful ways!  One subject we talked about was "shades."  We started with blue paint, and then explored what happened when we added black and/or white paint to the blue.  We talked about how the blue would get darker, or lighter, but didn't change into a different color really.  Dark blue and light blue are shades of blue.  Each masterpiece of blue shades was truly a masterpiece!

 

We used balls and ramps to create different tracks.  It was so fun and educational to explore what happened when we changed the angle of the ramp by raising or lowering the end of the ramps.  The balls speed would change and we found natural ways to talk about force, gravity, height, and distance.

     

But sometimes the ramps made dog homes too.  :) Because open ended materials are useful that way!  Why not?

Our Explore Table has been filled with fuzzy sticks, dry noodles, and colanders.  We navigated fuzzy sticks through the holes, in and out, to make silly hats!

Friend "Alarm Clock" wondered why sometimes you could see the fuzzy sticks and sometimes you couldn't.  We noticed that if we threaded the fuzzy sticks from the outside of the bowl, versus the inside, the fuzzy stick would poke out the way she wanted.

Play offers so many opportunities for young children to talk about "big" ideas from art and physics, and practice "big" skills like threading and weaving.  It's no wonder that play is one of the fastest ways to learn new information and skills for children!

Make Your Own Mermaid Cove

This has been a hot spot for play lately.  We provided a box with flat stones, natural seashells, blocks, ocean animals, and a variety of mermaids in shell seats.  The "water" was simply a blue and silver silky scarf tied around the table.

The children have set the stage, played, and reimagined stories and scenes over and over again.

Sometimes our mermaids befriended nice turtles and dolphins.

Sometimes the mermaids needed a spot to chill out and have a snack.  And sometimes they had to escape to safety from an invading shark or orca whale!

It's a beautiful thing to behold when young children develop creative thinking skills, scientific knowledge of living things, language, and role playing with a small box of simple toys.  <3

Emergent Curriculum Creeping Out of the Grass

Last week we found an Eastern Box Turtle on the playground!  It was super exciting and interesting!  We have started building a unit around turtles to build on this spark of interest.

The day we found him, we talked about how to hold him safely.  Any animal that has a mouth could bite, so use two hands and keep them away from his mouth.  He eats food like leaves and berries, meal worms, and buggies.

(We know he is a male because he has red eyes, bright orange spots on his arms, and a slight indentation on his bottom shell which helps him stay balanced when mounting his mate.)

We talked about how his shell was hard like finger nails.  When he feels scared, he can tuck is head, legs, and tail into the top and bottom parts of the shell to keep them safe.  We noticed his toenails that help him dig.  We observed that this was an animal with bones, dry scaly skin, and no hair.  He does have eyes, mouth, and nose like us.

We read Mossy by Jan Brett later in the day.  This beautifully illustrated book of fiction helps reinforce the idea that wild animals are happiest in their own habitat.  Eastern box turtle populations in this area have been declining due to poaching for pets, getting crushed under cars or lawn mowers, and deforesting the turtle habitat.  We released our box turtle after we handled him just like Mossy was returned to her natural home in the book.

Since we could not keep the wild turtle that we found, we further explored turtle habitats and what turtles need to live in the Block Area with turtle toys, stones, and silk plants.

We created several turtle homes complete with vegetation, pools of water, rock climbing mountains and more!

Seeing the children's interest and knowledge increase through stories and play following a real-life experience has been turtle-ifically awesome!

Spooky Sensory Bottles

We've currently have three sensory bottles to play with and these are so cool!

This one has purple bands, a bit of orange glitter, plastic bugs, clear glue and water.  Just shake it up and watch the bugs "fly" around dodging the bands.

Next, the green bottle works best if you roll it, rather than shake it.  Instead of glue, it's made with water and oil. Most of the green glitter conglomerates with the oil.  The googly eyes float, so they are inevitably carried by the oil as well which always moves to the top of the bottle.  When the bottle is rolled around, the oil moves like a slimy monster!  And the eyes are ALWAYS watching you!  Boo!

This last bottle is just plain pretty.  :)  Made with equal parts of clear glue and water, the red and gold glitter swirl slowly after being shaken.  The fall colored gems will gently descend when the bottle is at rest.  All in all, it's completely mesmerizing.

Sensory bottles are amazing because they are so unique.  Depending on what you put in them, the results can be so different.  If you haven't tried these yet for your kids or students, don't be afraid to start!  It's almost impossible to go wrong.  :)

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.

Preschoolers as Scientists

"Let's do what scientists do!  We'll study something, look at it up close, touch it, smell it, listen to it, and think... then write down what we've learned.  We can record our ideas with words, pictures, or tracing."

This was our Small Group prompt on Tuesday.  The children were each given a clipboard, pencil and sheet of paper.  They could choose a magnifying glass, and from a variety of star fish, sea shells, and shark teeth from the basket.

Some things we learned during this activity is that only the swirly shells sound like the ocean.  Flatter shells, starfish, and shark teeth do not.

We used a lot of descriptive language like: smooth, spiky, rough, tooth-like, sharp, spiral, striped, and so much more.  The students were encouraged to write or draw these words.

We even learned where the starfish mouth was!  Imagine eating from your belly button!  Starfish have a mouth right in the center of their bodies.  Tracing the starfish was challenging as well.  All of the starfish that we used had five legs.

 Here are some samples of the notes the children made.

Toddler "K" (age 2) "traced" her star fish by drawing circles around it.  She made some squiggles which she indicated were the words "starfish."  Ms. Harmony helped her write out the letters so another adult could read her words.

Friend "K" (age 5) traced her starfish and shark tooth independently.  She also drew her representations of seashells and labeled her diagrams.  She sounded out the words she wanted to write and wrote the letters herself.  If she was uncertain about a sound, Ms. Harmony would help her identify the correct letters like, /sh/ and /oo/.

Mud Day: Success!

  

International Mud Day is a real thing.  And we REALLY celebrated here at Harmony's House!  (Thanks to C. Tweedy for most of these awesome pictures!)  The perfect mud is a mixture of clay, dirt, soil, and water.  It was great for painting the climbers and playhouse, making "mud brownies" and "cupcakes" with "crushed Oreo topping," painting our bodies, and making super slick mud slides!