Self Help Skills
Our goal is to provide opportunities for the development of the child's self through respecting and caring for him or herself, respecting and caring for personal and community space and materials, and awareness of personal information and identity, accepting success and failure and the confidence that comes from experiencing these. Self help skills give children opportunities to become:
· Confident in their ability to be responsible for themselves and their personal and community belongings.
· Secure in knowing they have a space and understanding how to use and care for it.
· Respectful and caring of self and their own community spaces and materials.
· Accepting of personal responsibility for the success or failure of their actions associated with caring for themselves and personal and community space and materials.
How do we give children the opportunity to develop self-help skills?
We believe the process begins with the arrival at school. We would like to see children:
· Walk through the door on their own.
· Put away their own lunches and backpacks in their personal space.
· Hang up their own coat.
· Wash their hands.
· Have a short routine for saying good-bye.
We understand that everyone has rough mornings and hard days. Please let us be the ones to help your child through these times. Talk with your child's teacher about possible solutions in this ongoing process. When your child is in school we will help him or her develop self-help skills by:
· Making sure he or she knows where his or her cubby is so he or she can keep art work and personal items there. (This also results in beginning name recognition and understanding that each person also has his or her personal space.)
· Coaching him or her on personal care skills such as:
o Hand washing before snack and lunch.
o Cleaning up his or her own space at snack or lunch.
o Toileting.
o Wiping his or her nose.
o Putting on his or her own clothes (when accidents happen).
o Putting on his or her own coat for outside time (the flip trick).
o Participating in clean up.
o Taking responsibility for homework.
o Building community awareness - everyone helps.
At lunch we help children learn to:
· Open their lunch boxes.
· Open lunch containers.
· Eat their protein first.
· Clean up their lunch spaces.
· Put away their lunches in their spaces.
Finally, we like to see children carry their personal belongings out to the car, or at least carry something of theirs out!
Student Input to Adult Visitors
Welcome to our classroom.
Please sit down and make yourself comfortable.
We would like to visit with you on our level.
Our learning is happening all the time, in many ways.
Please observe us quietly for a few moments, listen to our conversation and try to discover what we are working on.
Our teacher may ask us a question or make an observation about our work. Please let us discover the answer; this is how we learn to think. It may take a few minutes, or we may have to do some work or some thinking, or some asking of friends. Please let us work on this discovery process. Our teacher has a goal in mind for us.
At circle time, you are welcome to sing and dance with us. Please be on observer during our discussion times. (Sometimes this can be very difficult for adults.)
Thank you for visiting with us and for respecting our learning environment, we hope you enjoy your time with us and we hope you learn too!