Helping and Sharing!

Hello Friends!

I hope everyone is having a wonderful week! This week we focused on helping and sharing. These are timely topics, as our pre-tots are learning how to take turns and share their toys on the playground and in our classroom. We are constantly working on building their language around asking for the toys they want to play with and telling their friends when they are using something that a friend wants. We use phrases such as "I'm using it" when a friend tries to take their toy, and "can I have a turn please?" when they want something that a friend is using. We try to say "taking turns" instead of "sharing," because at this stage the concept of sharing is a little too abstract, but taking turns is easily demonstrated and our friends have an easier time understanding that they can use a toy and then pass it to another friend so that he or she can have a turn. 

We also spend a lot of time talking about helping throughout our day. All our friends help clean up our classroom, and our older friends really enjoy helping us with different tasks, such as opening the gate or carrying supplies out to the playground. We also help our friends up if we knock them down, and we practice saying "help please" when we need a teacher's help. Our book of the week was "The Little Blue Truck," which is about a little blue truck who helps a big, busy dump truck who get stuck in the mud. The little blue truck's animal friends push the little blue truck who in turn pushes the dump truck. The pre-tots love this book, and some of them almost know it by heart.

Much of our discussion on these topics happened naturally throughout the day, but we still did some fun activities.

On Monday we had a lot of fun drawing with markers--our friends have really started filling up their pages with many different colors!

On Tuesday morning Ms. Ashley brought in some essential oils and made natural bug spray with the children. It smelled better than most bug spray I've smelled!

On Wednesday we spent some time focusing on our Montessori works

On Thursday we decorated paper bags, which we used to fill with "treasure." Juliette also brought in a special book from home which she shared with the class. Thanks, Juliette!

On Friday we searched for rocks in pools of mud, then we rinsed and cleaned them with water and tooth brushes! In the afternoon June shared her special kitty from home with us :) We also had a super fun glow-stick dance party!

Thanks again for all your support! 

Love,
Magdalen