Building a Learning Community

Creating an inclusive learning community in a preschool classroom is critical to good child development. Helping children build social skills, including an awareness of how others are feeling, helping the children put their empathic skills to use and help those who are facing challenges is such an important part of creating a learning community! It’s also such an important life skill. It's wonderful to see those skills emerge in our children.

Part of building a learning community includes teachers and children helping each other overcome challenges and hurdles. Separating from parents can be a hurdle for some. Joining in play already in progress can be a challenge for others. On Monday morning, Heather, the Head Teacher in the Robin Room was inspired to see how her children were able to help each other through the transition from home to engaging in play with their friends. Here’s what she witnessed.

Aaron was missing his mom this morning and we were sitting outside together and playing with Legos. Leo and Ethan came over to help us build and noticed that Aaron was feeling a little sad. This is the conversation that came from this observation.

Ethan "Are you feeling sad today?"
Aaron" I'm sad"
Leo "because you miss your mommy?"
Aaron "I want my mommy to come"
Leo "Your Mommy will come very soon"
Ethan "Mommy will come after naptime, did you see the big flags up there?". He points to the big flags, "that one even has a big bear on it".
Aaron looks at the flags for a minute but then turns away again.
Leo "Are you hungry?"
Ethan "Maybe you are tired?"
Leo "I'm getting tired too"
Aaron "I want to go inside"
Ethan "We will go inside for lunch soon. I am building a big tower"

Ethan and Leo show Aaron how they are building a tower and point out the different things that they have added on to the tower. They offer Aaron some blocks and he starts to participate in their game. Heather was really impressed that even when Ethan’s first attempt at including Aaron in play didn't work, he continued to try and find something that Aaron would be interested in.

Here’s the second scene Heather witnessed.

Armstead wasn't sure he was ready to participate this morning when he got dropped off so we went to find something to get involved in. He was interested in the spray bottles and after getting his filled up he went to go play. For a couple minutes he stood by the benches and observed all the children playing, he looked unsure about how to enter into the play in progress.

Suddenly Dylan came running up and asked him if he had a spray bottle yet because he had an extra one. Armstead showed him that he already had a spray bottle, Dylan told him to check to make sure it worked okay. Together they checked out all the spray bottles to see which worked best, Dylan told him that he was a firefighter. Armstead said " yes, firefighters!!" and then they ran off to go put out the raging fire that was engulfing the climbing structure. They spent the next 20 minutes running around the yard playing together and pretending to drive in the fire truck and put out fires.

Here are Heather’s reflections:

As teachers we are trained in helping children work through difficult transitions in the morning, but with the children in our classroom we aren't even able to put all our skills to use! As seen through these two examples the Robins are very supportive of each other and are sensitive to how their friends are feeling. They don't like to see their friends sad or upset and they look for ways to help them through a rough period in their day.