Building Community with Preschoolers

November 4, 2008

I read a great article today that I wanted to share with you! It was published by the company that producesour curriculum for preschoolers. Their curriculum builds in a special small group time where kids get to share with other kids how the lesson applies to them. At WSCC, we call it “Talk Time.”

On Sunday mornings, our Talk Time is one of my favorite times to be in a room or leading my own group. I remember last month when our lesson was aboutGod calling David to be the future king. Our question during talk time was- “what wouldYOU like to be when you grow up?” I loved the answers the kids gave….some of them said a fireman or a bus driver. But my favorite answers were “a princess” and “spiderman.” Oh, to be a kid again!

Our talk time does a few imporant things in building community with our kids…

First, it gives kids an opportunity to share something of themselves on a very simple level. As people, we want to be known. We want to be heard. Our talk time gives each child their ownopportunity to experience that. Every child in the circlehas an opportunity to speak and be heard.

Second, it allows kids to build friendships and gives them a sense of belonging. The words our volunteer leaders use can be instrumental in this. “Let’s make room for all our friends in our cirlce.” “While our friends are talking, let’s be good listeners.” “Let’s let our friend, Maggie, share first.” “We have a new friend today, Marcus. Marcus, can you tell all our friends in the circle about….”

During Count Me In, when we learned about GROUP we boiled it down to one word: FRIENDS.Many of our kids will build lifelong friendships at West Side. I’m so glad I get to see the very beginning!

If you’d like to read the article for yourself, click here.

~Jessica

Filed under: 411 for Volunteers,All Posts,Parent Posts

Tags: article, community, friend, friendships, group, talk, time