Social Skills and 'All About Me'

[giraffe]

I ound some great manners books at costco last week

[AmandaKDT]

Songs:

1. Head and shoulders, knees and toes (speed it up and slow it down as you do it, kids think it is super funny)
2. If you're happy and you know it (can do other emotions too, like "if you're grumpy and you know it stomp your feet, if you're sad and you know it cry boo hoo!")
3. Hokey Pokey (good for body parts too)

last week for valentines day I had a Kindness Heart poster on the wall, and every time I "caught" someone doing something kind for someone else or using kind words I wrote their name (or they wrote it) inside the heart. It took some modelling of expected behaviour and some examples of what being kind meant, but they really loved it. I have three 4 year olds that I did this with. I also had them work on noticing if someone else was being kind to them or someone else, preventing them for just doing something kind just so they could have their name on the heart - (Amanda, I shared my blocks with Kara! Can I put my name in the heart?). They could only share what someone else had done, not what they had done themselves.

but I also constantly model social behaviour for them and tell them what they should be saying or doing if they don't do it themselves.