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 One of the many things I love about Mother Goose Time is that it sends me games to play with the children. These games are something that should not be skipped over during the month. My reasoning for this has to do with the natural reactions of children between the ages of 2 and 5. They do not like to share. This is not weird. It is their age. Well I mean I will tell the truth, I do not like to share now as an adult. I was horrible as a child. And I am an older sibling.  The preschool years though no matter if they have siblings or not, are filled with children who want to control their surroundings and be the only ones who play with their toys. When they play pretend, they want all their friends to listen to them and for all of their rules to be followed. Which means during my day I have 6 children who have at any given moment had at least 3 melt downs because they didn't get their way. This is where board games or games in general enter the equation. The games that we sit and play in small groups help the children learn how to play the game together. Many of the games are cooperative games, but I feel that the games where only one person can win has more to teach a young child.  The cooperative games are good for the 2 year old children. It helps them learn how to take turns and use the patience that we are teaching them. It also helps with attention spans and the game itself usually will focus on learning colors, numbers or letters. Or a combination of the three. Games where there is only one winner is where you need to be mentally prepared for the day. Because, children are competitive and WANT to win. While this is not a bad trait, it is important to teach them how to use their manners and how to win graciously and how accept defeat but to keep trying. The purpose of this exercise is never to crush their competitive streak. It's to help them develop a healthy outlook towards games and to process their feelings when they do not win, or when they do win. I teach my students by playing the games with them. After they are done we all go around shaking hands and saying "Good job, thank you for playing with me." If a child is upset that they did not win, I will offer to play the game again after explaining that it is ok that they did not win this time and I ask if they had fun playing. If they are very upset to the point of tears I will make sure to let them calm down and play something else and we talk about why they were upset later.
As you can see this all translates into the regular play environment. They are able to learn to use their words to solve their problems. It helps them to get along better with their peer group. Because while they think they have been playing a game, we have actually been helping them to process the feelings they have when things do not go their way. Keep on Teaching! Ms. Tessie *I receive Mother Goose Time in exchange for an honest review. |
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