Dilly Days with Beth and Joellyn: Authors of The InvestiGator Club™ for Robert-Leslie Publishing

My good friend and colleague, Maria Gonzalez, and I are delivering a workshop at the NAEYC Convention in Dallas this coming November. Please join us on Friday, November 7 from 10 to 11:30 AM at the Hyatt Regency in Cumberland C. During this session, we will explore a variety of approaches for the Spanish-speaking preschool setting. You will learn to tap into young learners’ curiosity through rich, meaningful Spanish literature, song, and storytelling experiences that develop children’s Spanish literacy skills, including oral language, vocabulary development, and comprehension skills. In addition, you’ll learn about a variety of Spanish literature, song, and storytelling opportunities that invite children to be active participants in content-area learning with a mindful approach. More NAEYC workshop and booth news to come! Stay tuned!

Where do your preschoolers eat? A positive and comfortable eating area in the classroom helps children focus on the food when it is time to eat. Provide a place for each child at an appropriately sized table.

To help transition in and out of snack time from activity times, assign children specific tasks that must be completed before and after each meal break. Perhaps it is someone’s responsibility to place a napkin at each spot or to make sure that all the garbage ends up in the garbage can. Wow parents by modeling and role-playing appropriate table manners. Have certain meals be extra special ones so everyone can practice and show-off what he or she has learned.

According to the National Association for the Education of Young Children (NAEYC), the best way for children to learn about nutrition is when they are involved with actual food—”not simply answer[ing] questions in workbooks or sing[ing] songs about vegetables.”

Here’s a snack-time activity to combine healthy eating with fine motor-skill development and the proper use of utensils. Set out small containers of fruit yogurt and graham crackers. Have the children use spoons or cheese spreaders (no sharp edges) to add yogurt on top of the crackers. They can experiment and decide just how much yogurt to add to get the best taste combination.

Openness and honesty are two of the best ways to control head lice. Parents must not be afraid to report head lice to the school or to each other.

Administrators can do a lot to set an open, trusting tone so families will feel comfortable in their reporting. The following comes as part of a parent letter from a principal in Illinois:

“I’m passing along to you some basic information about head lice with a few reminders:

1. Head lice are inconvenient and even troublesome. It is not life threatening, and there is no need for panic.
2. A case of head lice says absolutely nothing about the student’s hygiene, home life or anything else despite the connotations often associated with this condition. Lice are non-discriminating in their choice of hosts.
3. Parents and students who have reported head lice are deserving of our understanding and compassion. They should not have to deal with teasing or whispers or unkind remarks of any kind. Please refrain from this type of behavior, and please make it clear that you expect the same from your children.”

If families are not ashamed of head lice, then they can help one another to move full steam ahead to do away with it. Families must be encouraged to talk about lice as if it’s another part of life. Hiding the problem is why it spreads. If you don’t know it’s there, you don’t know to check.

One important means to control a head lice outbreak is communication with families and staff. The bottom line is this: staff and families must know when head lice are present in the school community so they can check their children and begin the eradication process if they find it.

Here are ideas for communicating with families:

• Each time a case of head lice is found, send home a note to that class, and to siblings’ classes.
• E-mail or send a weekly bulletin telling how many cases have been reported as well as “closed.”
• Invite a health-care professional to be a guest speaker at a special event.
• Respectfully ask all parents to notify you if their child or children are found to have head lice—even if it’s during a break or weekend and children have already been treated.

It’s important for administrators to have a Head Check and Lice Prevention Plan, preferably before a case of head lice is reported or discovered at school. Record your plan in writing and share it with families at the beginning of the school year. Keep these questions in mind as you craft a plan:

1. Will you require a “summer’s end” head check before school starts or before entering school—to minimize the number of students entering your building with lice? If so, consider setting up a special “head check” day where you bring in nurses or volunteers to check heads. Conduct the checks at least one week before school starts so families have time to treat heads before coming to school. Set up a policy for how to guide those who are found to have head lice.
2. Who will check heads during the school year? How will you check them? If you don’t have a nurse or healthcare personnel, consider forming a volunteer group who is trained by a local doctor or nurse to check heads.
3. What will be your “return to class” policy? Proof of treatment? Head check by a trained staff member to show there are “no nits”? Letter from home?
4. Will you check heads on a regular basis throughout the school year? Decide the best way to check heads so as not to disrupt class or scare the children. Decide how parents will be informed if a child is diagnosed. Decide what children will do before parents pick them up (if you require it).
5. Will you check heads only when a case is reported or found at school? If so, whom will you check: children in that class, classes with siblings, the whole school? Once reported or detected, be sure to have a trained staff member confirm the diagnosis, and later provide children with clearance to return to class.
   

Okay, so the topic of head lice isn’t fun to write about. It is, however, an increasingly important one for families and schools around the country. If you’ve ever had to get rid of them, you know what a huge pain it is. Wherever children come in contact with heads or hair, or with items that are on or near heads, the passing of head lice is possible.

The Internet is full of information about head lice and how it is detected, passed, and eradicated. Anyone who thinks his or her child might have head lice should visit these sites and do what they can to stop the cycle at home. After all, if children don’t come to school with head lice, it is less likely that head lice be passed during the school day.

While other grades and classes may have standard programs and procedures, preschools often do not have a school nurse or the healthcare staff needed to implement a head lice prevention system.

Over the next few days, we will post more information and suggestions about this ongoing problem. The intent of this blog series is to provide preschool administrators and staff with prevention and management ideas to minimize the spread of head lice and to keep schools free of the yucky little creatures.

As I reflect on yesterday’s experience, I take this away as advice for myself and for all those who love and work with young children:

• Provide good quality music. Kids know the difference between
  carefully crafted music and music that has not been well composed.
• Let children experience a variety of genres from many cultures.
• Offer classical music even after children reach school age. Pieces
  such as “Peter and the Wolf” spark imagination and provide knowledge
  of instruments including brass, strings, woodwinds, and percussion.
• Invite children to hear music for pure enjoyment as well as for
  specific purposes such as exercise or for remembering letters,
  numbers, and basic information.

Enjoy the rest of your summer! And be sure to include music when you
can!

Marion Hyson presents some good, practical techniques in her book The Emotional Development of Young Children.

1. Provide daily activities that prompt children to think about emotions. Promote pretend play. Share emotion-rich books. Weave creative arts throughout the curriculum.
2. Smile, look interested, look sad: Show your own feelings and mirror children’s own expressions of emotions. Engage babies in “imitation games.” Let children see that their own expressions influence others’ reactions.
3. Respond to what children are feeling. Tune in to children’s faces, bodies, and voices. Use this information to construct prompt, sensitive appropriate responses.
4. Name children’s feelings. Give words to what children experience emotionally. Connect the emotion labels that you use with children’s cultures.
5. Talk about the causes of feelings. Help children connect the way they feel with what made them feel that way. Use these conversations to build children’s ability to see others’ point of view.

In this post, a prekindergarten teacher talks about how she deals with strong emotions at the end of the year.

We all know that socialization is an important part of prekindergarten. But what are the actual coping skills that would result in an emotionally healthy child who is ready for kindergarten? These are some of the ones highlighted by Beth and Jo at the National Head Start Conference:

• Following rules, routines and directions
• Identifying feelings in oneself and others
• Controlling anger and impulses
• Problem Solving
• Suggesting play themes and activities to peers
• Sharing toys and other materials
• Taking turns
• Helping adults and peers
• Giving compliments
• Understanding how and when to apologize
• Expressing empathy with others’ feelings
• Recognizing that anger can interfere with problem solving
• Learning how to recognize anger in oneself and others
• Learning how to calm down
• Understanding appropriate ways to express anger