Teaching Self-Regulation

It is important to take a break and relax during the school day.

     Children in Miss Sweet's class take 3 minutes each school day to lay down, relax their muscles and practice breathing in through their noses and out through their mouths.  It sounds simple but it requires practice!  Many children try to pant or do quick breaths, those are not relaxing breaths.  

These children are doing the Drain Breath.

Ask your children about the different breaths that they have learned and let them teach you.  You may need to use them some day to calm down and relax.  

Playing with Math and Literacy in Preschool

If you visit our preschool classrooms you will find so many learning opportunities for children.  These children were playing bakery and wanted to take my order.

     Children are given many different writing tools and mediums to explore writing and drawing.  When children experiment with writing tools, they develop symbolic thinking skills and fine motor skills.  Marks take on meaning.  

This boy was saying letter names as he made marks on his paper.

These children were playing restaurant and taking orders.

Two of the preschool classrooms have "Shape Shops" up and running in dramatic play.  The shape shops are places where you can buy shapes.  You should hear the math language being used as children buy and sell shapes.  They can use the shapes to create a piece of art!

There are shapes to cut in the sensory table...

There are shapes to play with on the tables!

Math and literacy opportunities pop up in the most unexpected places.  What opportunities do your children have at home?  If you start looking and noticing, I bet you will be surprised at how many opportunities there are in your conversations, routines and play.