Booger Monkey, Purple Cow Head and *Freebies* Oh My!

Booger Monkey and Purple Cow Head are names that sent 2 of my kiddos into a snotty, crying puddle at the beginning of the year. It does not matter how illogical and silly it seems to us that anyone would get upset over this but they did and other little kiddos do too. Before Conscious Discipline, I would have said something about not being a monkey with boogers so it was okay and you just need to ignore that friend. Or I would have told them to go use their words and tell that person that you didn't like what they said.

Part of CD is helping children find their BIG VOICE. There is even a Shubert book that goes along with teaching children about their big voice.

(The Shubert books are a great place to start if you are wanting to do more CD in your classroom.)

Your big voice is not a yell or mean tone of voice but a very firm and confident way of letting someone know you do not like what is happening....it is your I mean business voice. You will need to help the children practice using this voice and making eye contact with whoever they are talking to. 

We read the book and then think of things that have happened in our room and we model what we would say. Just telling a child to go and talk to that person and use their words is really not helping to solve that problem for many reasons. One reason is that if the name caller was being mean or hurtful the child might be scared to go talk to them. Another reason is they have no clue what to say or the words they do know may not be very nice.

At the beginning of the year when a child came to tattle tell me someone called them a name, my first response was "Did you like it?". They looked at me like I had lost my mind and said no. I then told them to go to that person and say "I don't like it when you call me Booger Monkey. Please stop. My name is Heather." The child saying the hurtful thing then needs to answer that child with an okey dokey or I'm sorry or I can do that.....while making eye contact. 

This will take lots of you modeling and maybe even going with them at first to talk to that person. They will get it though and this eliminates a HUGE amount of tattling because they learn to stand up for themselves.

After talking and helping the injured booger monkey child, you then need to go talk to the child that was being hurtful. Most of the time there is something that happened that set this child off...and I am NOT saying that there is an excuse for hurtful, mean behavior because there is not. This involves mirroring back to the child what you noticed. For example, your arms are folded like this and your face looks like this. Your body is telling me that you are mad or frustrated . What happened? After you get to the root of the problem (like the booger monkey child took the pencil from the naming calling friend without asking), you help that child find a better way to solve the problem. For example, help the child practice saying "I don't like it when you take my pencil without asking. Please give it back to me."

I hope this gives you an idea of what you can do if you have a little one in your classroom who might be hurtful with his or her words at times. If you have any questions, just email me or ask in your heart note and I will try my best to help you out! =)

On to the *freebie*! And for those of you who asked, I create my activities in PowerPoint. I don't know if there is something easier but it works for me. When I finish, I save it as a pdf and then upload it to Google Docs. =)

My kiddos love dice games. This is a fun activity they can do after finishing other activities. All they do is roll 2 dice, add the numbers, and trace the sum. We play until all numbers reach the top...and it helps some who still have chicken scratch handwriting. I really think some of them like to try and do messy handwriting so I can bawk, bawk like a chicken and hand them back their work. =)

Here is a missing addends game. We are going to use some leprechaun gold to help us solve the problems. =)

My kiddos love sorting. We have worked on several addition sorts focusing on less than, equal to, and greater than. Here is a sort focusing on that with subtraction.

This little activity is putting leprechaun words in ABC order. I put 2 of the sorting words on 1 page to save paper. After they put the words in order, they are going to write as many words as they can in a sentence. I usually have my kiddos color those words with a crayon.

I hope you can use these with your kiddos. If you have any requests for things you might be wanting, please let me know and I'll see what I can do! =)

Thank you for always leaving such sweet and encouraging heart notes. Keep stopping by...I have the beginning of an inspirational poem rolling around in my head. =)