As the new school year approaches, we want to share some of our favorite SEL strategies for starting off strong.  Social emotional learning is a sturdy foundation on which children's success in learning - and in life - is built.  
We hope you find our tips helpful as school starts, or at any time of the year!

​Here are some ways to make connections with each of your children at the beginning of the day.  Do what works for you and the children you care for.  If children enter the room from a hallway, greet children as they enter.  While there are charts available with greeting choices, it may be best to make or modify your own. Limit choices and have children give input as to their favorites to include. Choices can be changed or added over time. Choices can include:

• -a wave
• -a hug
• -an elbow touch
• -a verbal “Good Morning!”

If children arrive at different times, a greeting apron can display choices wherever the adult is and can be used by more than one caregiver.
 
After the morning greetings, create opportunities to connect with each child throughout the day by playing connecting games with them.  For ideas for connecting activities with children, see our previous blog posts.  We also highly recommend Dr. Becky Bailey’s book, I Love You Rituals.

Imagine how young children feel when they will be going to a new class or school, especially if the experience is totally new for them!  We can help children adjust to these new situations by including activities that strengthen peer relationships and nurture important social-emotional skills.

Here are some of our favorite ways to help children get to know new friends at school:

-Make a class book with pages picturing every student. Children love recognizing and naming classmates. 

-Practice name games, like singing, “My name is Miss Marjorie.” Children echo, singing back, “Her name is Miss Marjorie.” Continue with everyone’s name.

-Help children make friends through stories.
“Meesha Makes Friends” is a book by Tom Percival, author of the Big, Bright Feelings book series. In the beginning of the story, Meesha is happy to “make friends” out of paper and craft materials, but not as comfortable talking to other children.  Sharing this book can open a discussion with preschoolers: “How did Meesha “make a friend”? How do you make friends?”  Children can also “make a friend” like Meesha and Josh in art!

-Guide children through role playing. “What do you say when you want to play with someone else? When you want a turn to play? When you need help? When someone asks you if they can play with you? How do you feel when someone shares a toy with you or gives you a turn?”  

How do you “coach” children through making friends with classmates?  Share with us your favorite name game or connecting activity!

When we talk about the school family, we are referring to children and those who support and care for them, providing a safe and supportive place in which they can grow and learn.

We can help children feel safe by introducing them to all the adults who work in their school or child care program.  We can provide opportunities for the children to connect with each adult, not only at the beginning of the school year but throughout the months.  If we notice and point out the adults contributions, the children will begin to do the same.

Here are a few ideas that may to reinforce these connections and the children's sense of appreciation:

-Make a book of the people at school, explaining everyone’s jobs and emphasizing that they are all a valuable part of the school family.

-Help children show appreciation for all the people who take care of them at school.  Assist them in drawing or writing notes of thanks, especially when school family members do something above and beyond their duties.

Mornings can be hectic for families at home, in the car, and at drop-off, especially at the beginning a new school year! Take a deep breath and guide your children to school or child care by sending the calming message that ``It's gonna be a good day!”

Try to keep the before-school morning routine as consistent as possible. As you dress or prepare for the day, talk through any special activities your children can look forward to, like telling them that you packed their favorite snack! 

Connecting games can be incorporated into the morning drive. Sing favorite songs together or look for familiar places along the way. 

At school, share a hug or handshake that is special to you and your children. If possible, walk your child to their teacher or caregiver. 

If your child is upset at your leaving, show compassion, focus on safety and provide a connection before you leave. You may say, “I see you are feeling scared that I am leaving. You are safe here at preschool, and your teachers will keep you safe and help you learn and play today!” Let’s take a big breath and say “Have a great day!” 

At school, teachers and caregivers can begin the day with consistent routines. For young children, a familiar “Good Morning” song can be an opportunity to individually greet and connect with teachers and other children. 

Keeping the daily schedule as predictable as possible helps calm the children's uncertainties as to what is going to happen.  Posting a picture schedule and reviewing it during every transition can ease children into the school routine until it becomes familiar. 

The beginning of a new school year is a good time to set goals.  For myself, I find setting goals much easier than accomplishing them!

If you struggle with taking action toward your goals as I do, perhaps you can try what I'm trying: start with small steps.  I got this idea from a book I recently read, Atomic Habits by James Clear.  Another piece of valuable info in the book is this: the best way to change a habit is to focus on the person you want to become.  So I’ve started telling myself, “I’m the kind of person who…”

Here are some of my personal examples:
-I’m the kind of person who follows through in a timely fashion when I say I will do something.
-I’m the kind of person who completes projects I start
-I’m the kind of person who reaches out to help others

NOTE:  I don’t have any of these identities yet!  But I want to be the kind of person who does those things - and much, much  more.  And I’m finding James Clear’s idea of focusing on identity to be a helpful way to start. I hope it will be helpful for you, too.

Here are some identity ideas to get you started, based on my 4 C’s Framework of Emotional Support.  

Perhaps you would like to be:
-a connected teacher, who builds strong, caring relationships with each and every child
-a calm teacher, who uses deep breathing and other stress relief strategies regularly as part of your self-care
-a compassionate teacher, who is empathetic toward all your children, especially the challenging ones

For more info about these 3 C’s and the 4th C as well (Capacity-Building of Self-Regulation), see my blog posts from May and June of this year 

We hope you found some of these ideas helpful.  Please share your own if you are willing.
​All of us at ECS are wishing you a wonderful school year!

This month, we want to share some ideas for activities you can use in your classroom and home this summer - or any time of the year!  We hope you enjoy these ideas for outdoor play, early literacy, art, science, and gender-neutral environments and toys.  Please comment to share your own favorite teaching tips or activity ideas - there are so many wonderful ways for children to learn through play!

Summer is the perfect time to give children the chance to read or be read to for fun and information. Visit your library to find books about a topic your children enjoy or that features their favorite characters. Check out a book that is beyond your children’s ability to read on their own and read it to them. Set aside time during your summer schedule for “read to me time”. Attend library programs, or read a book at naptime or bedtime. Reading to your child instills a love of language and the understanding that what we say can be written, what we write can then be read. It also builds connections between reader and child!
Public libraries across the country have summer reading programs and incentives for all ages, even grown-ups! Visit your local public library to find out more about what they offer, or you can provide your own reward at home when a reading goal has been met.​

​​Open-ended, creative art experiences emphasize process over product. Through these experiences, children explore materials instead of being told “how to do it” or what color something “should” be. 
​Some process-focused art materials and activities to explore with young children include:

• Sidewalk chalk
• Painting with a variety of objects or tools (paint rollers, dish scrubbers, whisk, or outdoor objects like a feather or small pine branch.)
• Mixing colors (use droppers of watercolor/diluted food coloring onto paper towels or coffee filters.)
• Clay and dough of different colors and textures, including natural clay, mud and sand sculptures.
• Weaving cloth, yarn or paper.

There are so many science activities you can enjoy both indoors and outdoors!  Besides the activities you provide in the science center in your classroom, you may want to provide these outdoor explorations as well:

Sun:

• Is it hotter in the sun than in the shade? Experiment on the playground, in the park or your backyard.
• Create and observe evaporation paintings: “Paint” with water on surfaces like a sidewalk or outside wall and watch as they dry, then “paint” again.
• Shadow art: Trace around someone's shadow with sidewalk chalk, move, then have children find and match their shadows again.
• Sun prints: Place a toy, flower or other found item on construction paper and leave it in the sun (outside or near a window) Observe after a few hours, how the sun will fade the paper to leave a print of the item.

While we as early childhood educators and parents may strive to make our classrooms and play areas places where boys and girls are equally encouraged to explore their own interests, we know that many social traditions as well as marketing and packaging are aimed at boys or girls. At ECS our team has always supported play that is child-led, not directed by an adult to be gender specific.  ​

Here are some ideas for fostering gender neutral play environments:

• Watch your language! Please don’t exclusively tell girls they are pretty and boys they are tough or smart.
• Use gender neutral terms such as firefighter, mail carrier, parents, and police officers. Be aware and make children aware of jobs held by men or women: soldiers, trash truck drivers, farmers, nurses, hair stylists, the list is endless! 

Play is the means through which children learn, and toys are the tools we give them to accomplish that job. What toys can best help?  To help answer that question related to gender roles, NAEYC asked a researcher about her work on gender-typed toys:
“In general the toys most associated with boys were related to fighting or aggression (wrestlers, soldiers, guns, etc.), and the toys most associated with girls were related to appearance (Barbie dolls and accessories, ballerina costumes, makeup, jewelry, etc.)."
"The toys rated as most likely to be educational and to develop children’s physical, cognitive, artistic, and other skills were typically categorized as neutral or moderately masculine. We concluded that strongly gender-typed toys appear to be less supportive of optimal development than neutral or moderately gender-typed toys.”

We hope you got some new ideas for activities to help children learn through play.  Let us know your favorites so we and others can learn from you!

I hope you've gained some strategies that help you build children's capacity for self-regulation.  Let me know which ones work best for you.  Any additional tips are welcome as well - we can all learn from one another!

When young children are upset, they usually need help from adults to calm down.  And the more upset they are, the more help they need!

When children are distressed, acting out, or having a tantrum or a meltdown, they don't often know what to do.  Sometime as adults we don't know what to do, either!  We may try distraction ("Look at this book"), reassurance ("You're okay"), questioning ("Why are you crying?),  reasoning ("We have to clean up so we can have our snack") or consequences ("You need to be by yourself until you can calm down").  Unfortunately, these efforts don't always work as well as we'd like.

Brain research  and experts in child development, psychology and psychiatry show us a better way (1, 2, 4, 7).  To handle their upset, children need three things from adults:  Connection, help with calming, and to be treated with empathy and compassion.  In my Framework of Emotional Support, I call these the 3 C's.  Let's look at strategies for each of the 3 C's.

After giving empathy, show compassion by offering to help the child deal with the feeling.  Let them know "I'm here to help."  Your job is to help them deal with the feeling, not to "give in" to what the child wanted that started their upset.

I hope these strategies help you support upset children with the  3 C's of connection, calming, and compassion.

Later, when children are calm and ready to learn, we can provide the other support they need.  We can build their capacity for self-regulation and resilience by teaching them what to do instead and applying other strategies and environmental supports to help them handle future challenges.  Watch for the next blog post for information about this fourth "C'.".

In honor of Autism Acceptance Month, here are 7 tips for working with children on the autism spectrum:

4.  Provide practice of problem-solving.
​ Problem solving skills take a lot of practice and can be learned through opportunities for peer conflict resolution. Encouraging children to attempt to figure out how to solve a problem on their own promotes independence and self-confidence.  Practice can also come from discussing scenarios and providing feedback on various solutions.  When children learn to have healthy discussions and use active listening, they develop respect for others' opinions, even when they disagree.

In my preschool classroom, I taught children a simple method of problem-solving.  I coached them through the process, and eventually they could solve problems themselves!

• Define the problem ("It looks like you both want to play with the truck")
• Brainstorm solutions ("What do you want now?" Let each child tell what they want.)
• Evaluate the solutions ("Will it work if...)
• Choose one both can agree on ("You've agreed to each play with it for 5 minutes")
• Help them implement the solution (Play a chance game to see who goes first, set a timer)

First, let's define diversity, equity and inclusion.  Here's what the terms mean to me:

• Diversity - there are differences in a group of people, such as culture, race, gender, family structure, religion, sexual orientation, socioeconomic status, language, and abilities
• Equity - we take into account what individuals need to be successful, instead of giving everyone the same thing (equality). 
  
• Inclusion - everyone belongs and feels they are a valued member of the group

B- Books...
A great way to show children our attitude of honoring diversity and inclusion is through the wonderful world of books! 
Here are a just a few suggestions to reinforce kindness, inclusion, and respect for all. ​

...And Beyond
​Another way to honor diversity and model inclusion would be to include depictions of or interactions with people of all races, abilities and other social identities throughout your classroom or home environment.  Are multicultural dolls and pictures of all types of people easily accessible to your children?  Do you provide opportunities for your children to interact with people from all backgrounds and walks of life?

C- Classroom Activities/ Cool Ideas to Try at Home
That leads us to activities to do in the classroom or at home. Here are some ideas for reinforcing kindness, honoring diversity, and encouraging inclusion:

• Provide a variety of cooking implements and pretend foods in your home center 
• Cook and discuss various dishes from many different cultures and countries
• Listen to music from around the world (and from different time periods, too), providing instruments from different cultures in your music center
• Encourage children to make life-size self-portraits, providing butcher paper, mirrors and art media with accurate colors for skin, hair and eyes​
• Entice children to play in all learning centers, going beyond gender stereotypes in the materials you provide in each
• At "show and tell", encourage children to share about experiences rather than possessions
• Read books flexibly, substituting fathers and other family members for the mothers in the stories
• Emphasize abilities rather than disabilities, and provide adaptive equipment for all children to explore

As we implement activities to honor diversity and inclusion, let’s remember to incorporate them year-round.  Avoid a “tourist approach,” where children “visit” other cultures only during holidays or special occasions; instead, provide activities that broaden children’s awareness of different ways of doing things.

As we are reminded to honor Black historical figures this month, let’s remember all the ways that we can show our respect for them – and others, in the past and in the present – throughout the entire year. ​

Check out my previous blog post on mindfulness activities for children.  Remember that we need to teach these strategies when children are calm and provide lots of opportunities for practice.  Eventually children will be able to practice mindfulness themselves when they are upset.  What a valuable skill for life-long self-regulation - and for a calmer classroom in the meantime!

Here are four more mindfulness activities to help you to cultivate calmness in your classroom or home life.  Please share your own as well - let's support one another as we strive for a better 2022!

Add these four mindfulness activities to your repertoire, and please share your favorites with us.
​We at ECS are wishing you a happy, healthy, and calmer 2022!

I hope these quotes will inspire you to use mindfulness to take care of yourself as well.  Try focusing your attention on your breath, your body, or your surroundings.  Or use awareness as you do an activity you find relaxing, such as walking or jogging; dancing or listening to music; journaling, drawing, or painting; sewing, baking or gardening.  You may also want to focus your mind on positive thoughts, like the people and the things you are grateful for and the things you've been able to accomplish.  

When the stress of the holidays - or life in general - gets you down, try a few mindfulness practices.  Perhaps, as they did for me today, they will help you feel a little calmer.
​
All of us at ECS are wishing you peace and happiness this holiday season!

Mindfulness activities help build children's capacity for self-regulation.  If you teach these activities when children are calm and provide lots of opportunities for practice, children may be able to do some of them when they are upset.  They'll need lots of help, especially at first:  You can model the activity (not just once or twice, but many times), then provide prompts or cues (little reminders to use the activities).  Eventually your children may be able to use mindfulness activities independently.  A bonus is that you'll have fewer tantrums and meltdowns to handle. 
Incorporate some of these mindfulness activities into your program or home life.  You'll be teaching a valuable life skill - and helping to create calmness in your life, too!

Here are seven mindfulness activities that may be fun for children and adults, too.  Watch this blog for lots more mindfulness ideas for children and some encouragement for you as well!  (f you don't want to wait, check out this year's posts on social media (@earlychildhoodspecialties on Facebook, Instagram, and LinkedIn.)  I'd love to hear your own activity ideas in the comments, so please share.  We're all in this together!

The most important part of deep or "belly breathing" is to focus on your breath going in and out.  You can also practice taking deeper breaths by concentrating on using your diaphragm, the muscle under your lungs that goes down when you breathe in and up when you breathe out.  One way to help you do this is to put your hand on your belly.  You should see your belly go out as you breathe in and go in as you breathe out.  If you're new at this, it's easiest to do while lying on your back.
Children may enjoy having a stuffed animal or toy on their belly and watching it go up and down.  This is a great activity for helping children relax for nap or rest time!

Besides deep breathing, sensory experiences such as eating provide a wonderful opportunity to practice mindfulness.
During a meal or snack, help slow down the experience and try to get children to engage the five senses to notice everything about their food.  Here are some questions you could ask:
-How does it look?
-How does it smell?
-How does it feel to your fingers or on your fork?  How does it feel in your mouth?
-How does it taste?
-How does it sound when you break or cut it?  When you bite or chew it?
Eating mindfully may have the added benefits of helping all of you enjoy the food and one another.  It will probably mealtime calmer, too!

You probably already have a sensory play area in your classroom or home.  You can suggest mindful play by encouraging children to focus on the sensations of their fingers and both sides of their hands as they explore.  They may also want to notice what they smell and hear as well. Rotate through a variety of wet and dry sensory materials, and provide sensory bins both indoors and outdoors.
Some of my favorite sensory materials are kinetic sand and water beads.  Which ones do your children enjoy most?

So now you have a few ideas for mindfulness activities for children.  I hope they bring you and your children calmness as we approach the hectic end-of-year holiday season!