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| BETTER
BEGINNINGS PENNY PATTER by: Bettie Witherspoon |
| February 9, 2007 | Super Bowls are Bully |
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Don’t ask me! I thought that the Colts were a Baltimore team. I like to enjoy special days as much as the next one, but football seems less than sporting to me. Worse yet, it seems to bring out the bully in some of its enthusiasts, spilling over into the domestic scene, with battered spouses, friends and family members getting more than their share of downs. We really hate it when it overflows into the workplace.
By coincidence, the character trait of our week is Fairness: Don’t take advantage of other people. Adapting the “Character |
Counts” * series for preschool under- standing is not always easy. For our Parent Involvement “Weekend FunWork", we stated that “Ways in which we might take advantage of others include intimidation, harassment, ganging up, name-calling, teasing, insulting, making someone fell left out, as well as exploiting the weakness, fears, or vulnerability of others. Bullying is a form of taking advantage of others. When a person feels hurt or afraid or uncomfortable and it extends over and over, it is considered bullying.” |
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Do puppy dogs chew shoes? Do kitty cats have hissy fits? Do preschoolers ever snatch a toy from a classmate? Do two preschoolers at play ever refuse to let another join them? Do a gaggle of girls ever act like the three mean sisters in Cinderella? Of course not! Actually, given a warm, sharing, loving environment, the response really is “not too often”. But still, we do sometimes see a newcomer struggle to learn how to make and be a friend.
So we do need to teach and remind our young students to treat each other with kindness, and help them understand that others have feelings just like they do.
The “homework” activity for this trait is for each young student and family member to work together to make a “stop” sign |
pendant for the child to wear. This will be a reminder to each other to “stop and think” before taking advantage of anyone.
The socialization part of this is a given, but here we also have the counting of eight sides – math. (I will admit to enjoying the fact that octagon is linguistically related to ocho, eight in Spanish – the first language of many of our young students). We identify the color red – visual discrim-ination. We recognize the “st” sound and the “op” family – emergent literacy. We discuss rules – health and safety. And to top it all, we have ideas for discovery walks – looking for stop signs, red things, etc.
Neat. I love it when things work together like that. |
| (Trustworthiness, Respect, Responsibility, Fairness, Caring, and Citizenship) come from a book entitled “Developing Character When it Counts”, published by the Josephson Institute. More can be found at www.charactercounts.com |
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She suggests balling it up and throwing it as hard and far as you can when you are feeling frustrated (as alternative to bullying?). Diane suggests that kids would enjoy making friendship bracelets out of it. Cut or tear it into strips (1/2 inch or so) and then roll it up into a bead. Glue it with a drop of |
glue on the end. After only a few minutes, 10 or 15, string them on a piece of yarn, cord or elastic to make a bracelet. If desired, make it longer for a necklace.
Sweet. I love it when things work together like that. |
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February has lots of special days: Groundhog Day, Rosa Park’s Birthday, Presidents’ Day, and Chinese New Year, |
for example. Rejoice. Count your bless- ings. Celebrate! Peacefully, of course. |
Comments, Ideas, Suggestions?
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Bettie Witherspoon is a former executive director of Better Beginnings, which has provided affordable child care to the East Windsor/Hightstown area since 1967. |
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