Positive Relationships: Beginning Of The Year

Positive Relationships/ Beginning of the Year Our school year starts with an individual orientation meeting for each preschool family. At this meeting, I ask the parents to share helpful information about their child. I learn each child’s preferences, favorite topics, fears, and other information. I also send home a survey with the families, to get more in-depth information. During the first few weeks of school, I work on getting to know my students. Letting them get to know the adults in the classroom, and learning the classroom and school expectations. I spend this time gathering information for groupings, differentiation, planning, and overall classroom climate. Being on the floor and playing with the children is very important to me, because interaction at the child’s level helps to build relationships. …show more content…
I have seven to eight centers daily, and the children have a choice as to where they would like to go. Sometimes I will ask them to switch to a center when I need them to finish a project, to collect data, or to do a learning activity. The children also have a choice to have snack or not. We do a lot of voting activities to give choices about classroom decisions. We vote on themes, books to read, what centers will be, art projects, and prizes to work for. I believe these choices help the children to feel like they are invested in the classroom. When they voted on something they are more engaged and they seem to retain more information. The boundaries in my classroom are set from the second they walk into the classroom. We start learning the expectations right away, and we spend the first few weeks practicing and role playing what that looks like. We have expectations for all of our scheduled items, school areas, and interactions. These expectations all follow three simple rules: follow directions quickly, use helpful hands and words, and make smart