The chair

A new challenge is present to me. From now on, I would like to write this blog in English.  So, sorry in advance for mistakes and if you have any corrections, it will be great. :)

Today, I want to tell you about kids adaptation progress at the kindergarten. I know that we are not in September but one kid started this week and I was thinking about it. How they solved it in October when I began at the school.
Firstly, when kids start at the school, this process is very painful for them. They have to be separated from their own families. You can imagine that you have spent 3 years of your life stuck to your family and one day you should spend 7 hours at one unknown spot and strange people are saying to you "don´t cry", " Mummy will arrive soon...". This period has to happen and teachers must resolve  that situation succesfully.
My teaching experience allows me to observe how different teachers and variety of schools deal with kids in this period and I can say that I have seen many situations. For instance, leaving kids crying in the corner of the classroom during hours careslessly. Shouting was the way to deal with the kids and I understood that it was a typical solution.

 My point of view changed when I saw that there are many paths to understand the pain of kids in this process. The only method that works is giving love and being patient with them.
Kissing, hugging and respecting their pain is more useful than losing patience. If the kid wants to cry or to be sad because his/her family is leaving, why can´t we respect that?

Little by little, they will feel the need of comming in the group. It can happen that children spend 3 weeks watching the rest of the group in order to be sure that they are ready to come in. The teacher doesn´t force the situation. Another advantage about mix-aged groups is that older kids help younger kids with the adaptation progress . They can watch how older kids are totally integrated in the flow of the group.

The tittle of my post is called "the chair". It means that there was a chair close to the window at the beginning of the season. This chair used to be usuful for kids to say goodbye to their families from the window. They go up and make plenty of movements, they cry and smilie to say goodbye to their relatives.

On the other hand, collaboration of the families is essential. Some tips could be:

• Saying goodbye briefly
• Don´t say "mum will arrive at 5pm" kids don´t have a developed concept of time so, it will be better to say "mum will arrive after lunch or after nap time". Routines and habits allow them how to cope with safety in this period.
• Don´t lie to children. e.g. " Im going shopping and I will come back as soon as possible.
• Don´t dissappear without saying goodbye.
• Collaboration with workshops or activities at the kindergarden.

To conclude, I would like to show you some pictures of my last trip to Krakow. It was a fantastic trip full of history. The city is very nice but the visit in Auschwitz was really overwhelming. When you are there, you really realize how horrible the situation was.

Dovidenia!