Get to know me! We will help to promote social interaction by giving kids time in class to simply talk with each other. At the same time, we will also ask that each student find someone different each day to tell them something interesting about themselves as well as listen to what they have to say about what they have heard! This is a very fun and engaging way for children to break out of their comfort zone and get to know each other while practicing language development at the same time!
Counseling Even at a very young age, counseling can be very important. This activity focuses on giving the students the ability to privately speak to any adult at the preschool they please when they are feeling any emotion they might not fully understand yet such as jealousy towards another student that has a toy that they wish to play with. During counseling, our adults will take on the Authoritative parenting role which psychologist Baumrind has found ,through his research, to be the most effective way to raise a child up. It involves the adult listening to the child as well as encouraging them and showing warmth and affection while at the same time giving consequences for bad behavior and requiring discussion between the adult and the child.
Educational Videos By showing our students a variety of G Rated educational videos and movies, we are implementing the Social Learning Theory that says that young children, especially of this age range, learn by observing the behaviors of others. This idea of observational learning and the Social Learning Theory as a whole was established by psychologist Bandura.
Share your Idea! Children have a very active and vivacious imagination that we, here at Piaget's Preschool, would like to encourage. This activity focuses on promoting self confidence by giving students the opportunity to share their dream jobs, inventions they would like to create, and much more. This also helps to remove the egocentrism type behavior, which is a child's belief that everyone views a certain topic the same way as them and the child has a hard time understanding others' perspective on things. This will help the Theory of Mind belief which is the acknowledgment that others have beliefs and desires that may differ from ones own.
Pretend Play! Pretend Play is very important for children this stage in their development because it helps to boost a child's creativity while also fostering an accepting environment that allows them to not be afraid to dream big and do what they want! On top of which, each child will learn their basic role in society based upon gender through gender typing.
Teamwork Building Games Games are always a great way for kids to stay engaged in a particular activity and by providing the students with games that focus in on teamwork building, it enables the children to participate in a combined effort to achieve a common goal.
Cooperative Thinking Games Similar to the physical games above, this area focuses more on the mental side of games that requires students to do more problem solving. An example would be a group of students being tasked to make the tallest and most structurally sound marshmallow and spaghetti tower.