Also during the month of February, we tried to highlight ways that we can be kind and caring friends.
Sometimes with this age group, relationships seem to be constantly teetering back and forth between completely joyful play and dramatic conflict. Their emotions are so big, and their ability to self-regulate is still just beginning, and so happy moments often suddenly erupt into emotional outbursts. As a teacher, I try to focus on teaching kids how to handle the situations that often cause these conflicts, and at the same time celebrate the moments when their naturally kind and loving hearts shine through.
We read two books this month that specifically helped us to visualize kindness and friendship in different ways.
Fill a Bucket
The elementary school I worked at used this series as a guide for encouraging acts of kindness, and I love that
this book makes it a little more accessible for younger children. We played a bucket filling math game as a connecting activity. We also had some buckets for filling in the water table.
The Invisible Boy
This book was new to me this year, and I wondered if the concepts were a bit mature for my preschoolers, but we were able to connect to it in our own way.
We created invisible friend art by drawing in white crayon on white paper.
I also wrote the name of a secret invisible friend for each student to find.
Then we painted over the paper with watercolor to reveal the invisible lines.
After they finished, they gave their completed creation to the friend they found on their paper.
Many students wanted to continue exploring the process after we were finished.
It's worth noting that several students checked the snow after every storm to see if it was the right kind for building a snowman. It took until the last day of February, but we finally had snow that was good enough on a preschool day.
