E is for Emotions

When you work with children you aren't just teaching them academics. You are helping them learn how to be a human being that is part of a community. For my kids, our community is our classroom and hopefully the things they are learning in class will go with them out into the world.

     Talking about emotions is kind of a big deal with 3, 4, and 5 year olds. It's pretty obvious that controlling emotions isn't necessarily their strong suit and that's where we come in. When talking to little ones about emotions there are some important truths to help them understand.

1. Feeling emotions is totally normal. Everyone feels sad sometimes, everyone feels angry sometimes, it is normal.

2. Recognizing how you are feeling is a huge deal. As adults, we can teach our kids empathy when we help them see that we recognize how they are feeling and help them through it. My son Brandon was crying during carpet time. So we stopped to talk about it as a class. Why are you crying? "We put away his blocks when it was time to clean up and he wasn't done." Did you know we would clean up even if he wasn't done? "Yes" I asked the other kids, what are things you do when you are feeling sad to cheer yourself up? Madden sang a cute song about taking 4 deep breaths. Jaxon said he goes to his room to cry and then comes out to play when he's done. I said I like to get hugs or sometimes listen to music. Then we asked Brandon if he has a favorite song we could sing to cheer him up. So we rocked out to Dr. Jean's "Bear Hunt" and he felt better.

2. What we do when we are feeling those emotions is important. Yes we feel angry, but is hitting someone okay? Nope. Is there something you can do to help you calm down? Take deep breaths, run around outside, kick a soccer ball outside, talk to a friend . . . This is our job, to give them tools to keep in their tool belt that they can pull out when they are struggling.

      One of my kids especially struggles with keeping her emotions in check. So we have worked on putting tools her tool belt.  When she is upset I can use key words to talk to her about choosing a strategy to help her through those hard times. Here's what we talk about - balloon breaths (breath in deep, puff out your cheeks and blow the air out slowly like you are blowing up a balloon), belly breaths (breathing deeply and slowly so your belly goes in and out - in the nose and out the mouth), get a hug (it's usually a pretty long hug), lay in bed and snuggle your favorite stuffed animal, put on headphones and listen to music (we have a kid friendly mp3 player with a playlist on it of their favorite, appropriate songs. This one is HUGE for kids who can get out of control. On a side note, this also helps get them going on doing their chores too), are we being flexible, are we trusting mom that everything will be okay, or read a book. It's not perfect and we have been working on it for years, adding new strategies to fit her age, but it has helped improve the melt downs and stress.

  We spent some time in class talking about emotions. We discussed what emotions are. We listed different kinds of emotions. We read Today I Feel Silly by Jamie Lee Curtis.

Then we used my new favorite activity to explore emotions more deeply. I found this amazing make a face toy at Mr.Printables.com. We took turns making our face show different emotions. First I made a few faces and the kids talked about what emotion they are seeing. Then, we had two friends come up. One friend made a face and the other friend changed the paper face to match. It was really fun and a really great way to explore our emotions.

He couldn't quite do mad without smiling. 

You should definitely give it a try. It might just be so much fun that you find a single tear of joy rolling down your face. Have a great afternoon! 

E is for Egg: Hatching Chicks

Here is a cute little egg project we did during letter e week. Before we hatched our own chicks, we read the book Horton Hatches an Egg.

I printed both papers on cardstock and pre-cut out the chicks for the kids. They colored the chicks and cut out the eggs. 

We glued the chick to the back of the bottom egg.

Then we used a brad so the chick could hatch out of the egg. 

If you would like to make your own hatching chicks, click here for a free printable. 

When you click on the link, there are a lot of ads on the page. You want to click the small grey download button right beneath the box that says view document. You will need to sign in to download the paper. You can sign up for a free 4shared account or use your social media outlet to download. Please leave a message below if you have any problems or questions. 

Easter Activities

For Easter this year, we painted Easter eggs (of the paper variety), we made some Easter bunny masks and played some bunny games. Mostly relay races with eggs. Unfortunately, it rained today so our games were brought inside. The kids had fun having permission to run in the house. : ) We tried to hold the eggs on spoons

and hopped like bunnies to deliver the eggs to a basket. 

Here's how we made our bunny mask, 

Cut a paper plate in half. 

Cut out a spot for the nose and eyes. 

Punch a hole on each side and tie yarn on each hole to be able tie it around the back of their head to stay on. 

Add a pink puff ball above the nose.

Add paper ears.

Here's how we made our painted eggs.

We spread some shaving cream into a shallow tray (a cookie sheet would also work for this).

Then we added a variety of paint colors

Using a skewer we marbled the paint by dragging it along the paint from top to bottom, then bottom to top. You could also try dragging it in swirl patterns, waves, whatever your imagination thinks would look pretty. 

Next we pressed a paper egg onto the swirled paint. We made sure to press down on all sides and parts of the egg so that paint got on every inch. Then pulled it out of the paint. 

We let the painted shaving cream sit on the eggs for a few minutes, then used a squeegee to scrap the excess off. 

After that you are left with a beautiful painted marble egg. 

Clear as mud? Feel free to ask if you have any questions!

Happy Easter and spring break everybody!

 

E is for Elephant

An upside down hand print makes a fun and easy elephant art project.Just make a hand print with gray paint, add googly eyes, paper ears, and draw a tail!

 

E is for Emotions!

E is for emotions! We read this amazing book about emotions, Today I Feel Silly and Other Moods that Make My Day by Jamie Lee Curtis. We talked about different emotions that we can feel. 

We discussed how our emotions are normal and it is okay to feel different ways. We talked about how sometimes we feel frustrated or angry and that is okay as long as we express our feelings in an appropriate way.

For our activity we made emotion balls. They are pretty much stress balls, but hopefully our little preschoolers aren't feeling too much stress so we changed it to be an emotion ball. When they are feeling overly excited and need to calm down or when they are feeling angry or when they are feeling worried, they can take their ball and squeeze it. 

Each child drew a face on theirs using a permanent marker to make it more fun. The faces do rub off as they are handled, but that's okay because it just means we can have fun and keep drawing all different kinds of faces on our ball. 

 To make one, you put play dough into a balloon and tie it in a knot. This is a great way to use up play dough that is getting a little dry and old. Then use permanent markers to draw on a face.