The Most Important Things
Today we played outside a lot
Today we continue to explore marking by marking under the table. That was fun.
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But the most important thing we did was help a friend. I gave a five minute warning and said it’s time to clean up. Our friend was playing with Play-Doh and could not find the lid . The lid was lost Me – “ that’s ok. Come finish cleaning up the block room where you played .”
(Now let’s rewind for just a second there. I’m not a rookie teacher but I made a rookie mistake. I allowed children to leave an area that was not ready to be left. Our rule here is that you clean before you leave to go find something else to play with. So I’m going to take some responsibility in this situation.)
The child insisted that the Playdoh lid be found before he went to go clean up. A power struggle and melt down occurred.
There was kicking and screaming and all the things.
I asked the other children to leave the room and they went downstairs. Periodically I checked on our friend to make sure he was OK . 
One time when I checked in he was sitting in the calm down center. That’s a win right?
After a while I went back downstairs to talk to my friends . I said “what can we do to help.?” Jillian spoke up and said “we can wish him well.” So we did and that was an excellent answer.
I asked them how they would feel about going upstairs to help clean and help their friend and they all unanimously said sure!
The situation was diffused and everyone to helped clean and then we came downstairs for lunch and read a story
This is not the first time we read the story “Shubert Rants and Raves .” As I read the story we talked about what had happened just a few minutes earlier. The child that was in distress smiled and laughed at the book – but completely understood that this was a teaching moment.
Teaching preschool isn’t always about colorful Playdoh and dirty faces. Sometimes it’s hard but it’s always worth it. How many good things happened today because of that meltdown. The child understood a little better that he could control his emotions and that we were here to keep them safe. The other children learned that sometimes we have to be helpers and sometimes wishing well is the best option.