My name is Dawn Thys and I am the 3 year old preschool teacher at Keystone Elementary School. This year we have focused a lot on how to build those positive relationships with the peers in our classroom. It can be very intimidating to come to school for the first time and meet people who are complete strangers. Our first goal in preschool is to let the students know that this is a safe place and that the adults in the school are here to make school as fun as possible. At the beginning of the school year we sing a lot of songs that incorporate the students name in order to learn our friends name as quickly as possible. We hope by getting to know our friends by first name basis will create that friendship quickly. We read and learn a lot about our emotions and feelings at the beginning of the year that will hopefully help us throughout the year to deal with good or bad situations that occur in the classroom. When wanting to get a friend's attention we teach them first how to get the friend's attention in a positive way instead of just yelling at them. We have found that by tapping them on their shoulder and saying their name gets their attention a lot easier than yelling. The kids actually catch on to this very quickly. They also need to know that it is better to ask their friend to share than just walking up and grabbing a toy out of their hands. We struggle a lot with sharing and having to wait our turns but with a lot of practice and reminders they do eventually understand that it works best by being patient and not always getting what we want exactly when we want it.
Preschool is all about learning to be safe and comfortable in a completely new environment. This is something we work on daily in our classroom throughout the school year. Working through that has its challenges but the end result is one of the best things to witness as a preschool teacher. The hard work really does pay off!!