Greetings Peach Room Parents!
We officially welcomed Madison and Ella to our class on Tuesday! They will be with us every Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday. Madison had an incredible first week. Refuah Shleimah Ella, we hope you feel better so you can join us again next week. We are so happy to have both girls joining us! Also, we were glad to have Rivkale back with us for the end of the week and feeling much better. Thank you all for bearing with us through the unexpected closure on Tuesday. Our friends were probably very tired when you came to pick them up since it would normally have been their nap time. Thanks again for your patience and understanding.
As we welcomed new friends, I observed tremendous kindness and helpfulness from our older peaches. I watched as they expressed concern when new friends were upset or weren't familiar with where things were kept in our room. Leah was quick to offer them a water or milk bottle, Shyli and Gavin gave pats on the back or head, Rivkale gave hugs and Ronan showed them where we keep lunch boxes. I was humbled by the heart they showed for their new friends.
Conversely, I observed our older peaches looking for some reassurance and extra attention, which is to be expected with any change or transition. I noticed some friends were quicker to express frustration or impatience. Frustration and impatience are perfectly healthy emotions that we all experience, even as adults. This made me think about how we can best support an older toddler who is becoming easily frustrated on a regular basis? Do we swoop in and rescue them? Do we jump into action to appease their demands? Can we stand to see some tears of frustration even through a transition we anticipated or a reasonable request? Or do we give them a moment? Do we wait and watch before automatically intervening? Do we teach them to breathe through that swell of big emotion? What is our goal for their particular stage of development?
Erikson's stages of psychosocial development identify the stage from birth to 18 months as Trust vs. Mistrust. So for our younger friends, it would be 100% appropriate and necessary to respond swiftly to any physical and emotional needs. But around 18 months to 3 years, Erikson identifies this stage of development as Autonomy vs. Shame and Doubt. This shift can often be difficult for caregivers and parents. In my own experience as a parent, I had difficulty recognizing when my own son was capable as a toddler. He was a high need and intense infant which meant my focus was on meeting his needs to establish trust and security. But by continuing to do things for him that he was capable of doing for himself, because it was faster or because I couldn't tolerate his extreme frustration with simple tasks, I was unintentionally robbing him of valuable problem solving experiences and contributing to some learned helplessness. What he taught me was that building frustration tolerance is a vital skill that can and should be learned by every child. I'm happy to report he caught up in this regard, that's one of the many wonderful things about the resiliency of children. But it took a concerted effort on our part to encourage and assure him and to build his confidence so that he could find joy in learning new things and mastering new skills. In our classroom an example of how we might try to foster this skill would look something like this: Child is sitting down with their shoes and starts to cry or yell out in frustration. Morah might say, "It looks like you're really frustrated right now, if you need some help with your shoes, you can say, "Help!" or "Help please, Morah." Help is given when it is requested. Learning to ask for help is the first step. How many adults struggle with asking for help? I know I do sometimes. Once they have mastered asking for help, the next step is giving them help through verbal cues and minimal physical assistance through each step (scaffolding or building each step in that skill). Think of yourself as a coach. Walk them through the skill step by step, model it, then ask them to try it themselves. Reassure them that they can do it. Offer narration and praise for every bit of progress made. Then exclaim, "Look, you did it!" and watch their face light up. Part of the beauty of Reggio is that it honors how capable children really are. We want to raise problem solvers, so we need to give them as many opportunities as possible to face problems by offering our support and encouragement rather than doing it for them so that they realize they're capable too!
In the classroom this week we continued exploring the big idea of Spring: flowers and bugs, as we celebrated Lag BaOmer Thursday. Morah Ora brought us a surprise on Tuesday...a new bird for our classroom. "Guy", as we have named him, is a finch and our friends have loved watching him as he has been very active. Wednesday we read "The Very Hungry Caterpillar" and played a game reenacting the story as we practiced our fine motor and hand-eye coordination skills. We observed live caterpillars that will be with us throughout their metamorphosis from caterpillar to chrysalis to butterfly. They've already fattened up quite a bit throughout this week! Another fun fine motor/hand-eye coordination activity that captured our friends attention this week was threading silk flowers through colanders. Then we painted using sunflowers and stamping them onto paper. Some of our friends enjoyed the sensation of the paint on their hands and we extended this provocation into some finger painting. Other friends did not care for the sticky feeling the paint left on their hands and were ready to wash up after they stamped their paint with the flowers.
We are incredibly grateful for our outdoor environment as we had some seriously gorgeous spring weather to enjoy all week! The cooler temperatures did put a damper on our plans for water play this week- it was a bit too cool in the mornings, but we aren't complaining! Next week the forecast looks to be more typical for May in Arizona and we should be back on schedule for some water fun, so please bring your children in their water clothes and sunscreen! On the days we do water play, we will send suits/clothes home to be laundered and worn again the next day.
Thank you for sharing your children with us each week! We so appreciate the trust you place in us!
Shabbat Shalom,
Morah Ora and Morah Lindsey
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