Valentine’s Day is just over, but blogs this month are about interacting with people. Social and emotional development is a key part of kindergarten readiness. There’s all kinds of social learnings that happen for little ones. One of the very first social skills for kids is being able to share. Sharing isn’t easy for little ones and, both at home and at school, we hear lots of “that’s mine!” After all, they may not understand that sharing is only for a little while, not forever. Sometimes it doesn’t seem very equal. But like other skills sharing becomes easier with practice, (given that the situation is reasonable and fair).
Here’s an idea for practicing sharing. Using 1 set of crayons or paints, and a big piece of paper, draw or paint 1 picture. I’ve done this with markers and a small group of young children at a table with a table-sized piece of paper and after a minute or two, we all switched to the next chair so we could draw on a different part of the paper. By the time we’ve switched chairs 3 or 4 times our picture is pretty wild but the sharing has been great fun and the crayons zoom all around. What are some ways that you can think of to encourage sharing with young children?