With the arrival of many new families to the preschool two room, it is important to for every child to have a sense that they belong. During the first week of September, the educators worked on making connections with the children and guiding them into a safe environment.
During the second week of September the educators have worked in small group settings, with our new children and older remaining children, to help them build new relationships with one another. Mary decided to do a combination of activities within this week, supporting all children in ways that engage them in various types of play that continue to support communication, collaboration, problem solving and choice making.
We started out with an, “All About Me,” form that went home to all our families. It had the children listening to two stories expressing it is ok to just be you. We will continue throughout the month of September with each child having a chance to share their, "All About Me," forms with their peers.
The second activity was about how working together can make a beautiful thing. Here the children decorated a piece of paper, discovering later on how their single piece of paper turned Mary’s yellow circle into a beautiful flower. As the children observed each other gluing their paper on they were able to visually see the flower take form. Our conversation was about how we all may do things a little different but yet we are all important and there is no one right way.
The next activity was another book, called, “Mixed.” As we read the book in small groups the children learned that being alone or thinking you’re the best can make one feel sad; however, if we join and work together we can see the potential in each other and this in return creates happiness. As Theo said, “if nobody plays with me I feel really, really sad, but if I can play with them then I am happy.”
After the story and a small discussion, I had the children paired in a buddy system, a new friend with an older one. Here the children chose a colour of paint and made a single hand print on their piece of paper. The children then held hands and mixed their two colours together to make a new colour. They place their hand once again on the paper and discovered something new, something bright which had some children smiling, others laughing, and some expressing verbally their thoughts. “Cool, that makes me happy,” Theo said.
Brody added, “I have a new colour, I like it.”
Seeing our new children take part in these activities shows that they were confident, able and willing to try something new. The preschool children are on their way to make some wonderful new relationships that will strengthen their learning and growth moving forward.
