Samara's Week of 5 Senses

My Monday

After a neccessary amount of planning and lists, my first day of preschool at the church was personally successful. I didn't forget or leave out anything super important. So here are my thoughts...

What went well:

• Sitting on the same level as the kids. Whether it be on chairs or the ground, I can see that how we've been sitting close to the kids is helping them be more attentive.


• Keeping a tentative seating arrangement; e.g. Placing the kids next to who can help them have the most success. I like the cloth mats Jen made, although I forgot them :/ I tried to put circles of pipe cleaners for them to sit in, but it seems like anything that can be folded or crumpled or that the kids can fiddle too much with is not ideal. But I definitely agree that the kids need a place that we can easily say, please sit in your [spot]; wherever or whatever that may be.


• Along with the question of the day or while introducing the kids to the subject theme, I tried to positively give expectations. Such as, "Okay I know everyone is going to do a really good job today", "I know we can all listen and pay attention", "Let's do our best to keep our hands to ourselves" I think telling the kids we know they can do a great job being nice, sharing, listening and sitting will be encouraging to them. I hope giving them overt praise the second they're doing even the smallest thing good or right will payoff for us, as they see more attention is awarded for behaving correctly.


• I'm really stuck on this idea of instantly rewarding the kids. I tried to do like a reward system and my first thought was that they could put a marble in a cup with their name in it. I thought that would be fun, but then I realized that would be too distracting. So it never did quite come to fruition. My first idea really was small stickers we could give them on a chart, but maybe it would even work by just placing the stickers on their shirts. The main purpose would be rewarding each child immediately in front of the other kids. So they can see that the kids who are doing things right get attention not just the one's who are wandering and whacking eachother. It wouldn't be excluding anyone from the reward. It would be about drawing attention to whoever is sitting quietly and then hopefully, the others would follow and get rewarded as well. So I'm going to try the sticker idea and if anyone has any suggestions or ideas? I'd love to hear them :)


• Also something I really try to use all the time is positive instruction for curbing unwanted behavior. So instead of "Don't hit" or "Stop yelling... running"...Saying "Let's keep our hands to ourselves", "Can you speak a little softer?" "Hey let's sit down and do [this]". Telling them what to do, instead of just pointing out what they're doing wrong, will hopefully help them improve. It seemed so simple when I learned this technique, but it makes sense and works for us at home.


• During a Brown Bear activity of matching the colors to the the animals, I gave each child a color and they did well waiting their turns while still paying attention. Like how Jenn had each kid pick a book. Definitely keeping the kids hands-on and involved worked really well for us. Plus taking turns is always a good skill to practice.


• Having enough short activities and projects to accommodate the shorter attention spans seemed to work best for us. The schedule is nice to have as a planning guideline but I realized the importance of being flexible with it. Extending an activity that was going well and cutting another short when the kids seemed to be done with it.

What didn't work so well: Well I thank Kristyn and Jenn for going first and ironing out some of the wrinkles, so there was not that much to deal with. I can definitely see that as the kids get more used to eachother and used to participating in these activities, they are doing better.

• I ran out of staples that I needed to finish an activity. So obviously that was on me and being prepared.


• We had a few wandering hands and bottoms out of seats, a couple of "that's mine, mine" screams during play time. But all issues were minor and didn't take much to correct. I think that the "practice makes perfect" saying fits our situation. I feel the more the kids come and participate, the better it will be.

Okay, I didn't mean to write this much. I probably won't write this much again, but as my day is over, I had all these thoughts that I didn't want to forget. Well, I look forward to wednesday and I'm enjoying this preschool thing and so is Kainoa, so thanks to everyone!