Building Community

The preschool years are when the child begins to awaken to the community beyond their family unit. They're ready to begin making real friends and exploring new places. My little class has long ago accepted each other as a part of their new community, you can tell by how comfortable they are around each other and aware they are.

It's not uncommon for them to notice when a child does not come to school, asking my where so and so is. Or if another child leaves for the bathroom they're apt to notice and wonder aloud where they are. None are shy about asking anyone else for help, nor are they are afraid to say no to someone (well...M's still working on this occasionally). 

So I've begun throwing some new things in to the mix. The other children's house in our school is fully established in that it has the full three year span of children (unlike our new class that is just growing with younger children). Many of the kindergarten children in the other class are becoming fluent readers and so myself and the other teacher have been encouraging them to come over and read to the children in my class. 

It's actually quite entertaining how shy these 'big' kids can suddenly become when they enter another room; even if it's only filled with people they know! We had quite a few of these visitors today, and I tried to make sure I modeled greeting them warmly and making them feel welcome. I helped direct them to a specific child who wasn't working and would probably like to hear a story (luckily all my children said 'yes' when asked). I had them pull out our special reading mat (Thanks mom!) and stayed out of the way while the visiting kindergartner read at lighting speed before popping up to leave. I made sure I thanked them for reading to us and encouraged them to come back again if they'd like. Hopefully this modeling will rub off on my students and they'll pick up on doing it themselves soon.

The books that take less than 1 minute to read ;)

As an adult it was a pretty funny situation to witness. Children who know they don't really have any reason to be nervous try to pretend they're not, and then leaving as soon as possible; elated and relieved at the same time. Meanwhile my students were quite happy to sit down and listen to the stories, though I could tell they were a bit confused when the kindergartners kind of hid behind their book rather than showing the pictures like they're used to when I read. And then when the older student would leave (usually after only a minute or two since the books are pretty short), there would be this little pause as my children seemed to be thinking "That was it? Huh what do I do now..."

So that's our first real step to building up a bigger community. By welcoming 'strangers' in to an environment where my students are comfortable it gives them a chance to learn some of the social graces associated with visitors before they become a visitor themselves. Now I just need to find more excuses for them to visit the other classroom.....