Our three-year-old still finds it difficult to share their things with others, but the daily experiences and challenges they experience in their close environment develop their sense of empathy, and cumulatively develop their social, emotional and intellectual skills.
Read MoreBears on Chairs
Text: Shirley Parenteau / Illustrations: David walker / Translation: Mounira Bajjali Nassar / Publisher: Tchelet
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Dear Parents,
The five bears try to sit together on four chairs, making a joint team cooperative effort, and succeeding with a little compromise.
Our three-year-old still finds it difficult to share their things with others, but the daily experiences and challenges they experience in their close environment develop their sense of empathy, and cumulatively develop their social, emotional and intellectual skills.
We, as parents, have a great role in utilizing such daily opportunities, accompanying and supporting the child in building social relationships through which they learn to understand the feelings, needs and desires of the other, which enables them to think of solutions to problems like the little bears thought of in our story. How, then, can we support our child in this path?
We should be patient, allowing our child the time and space to try different solutions, and do not rush the outcome. We can stimulate their thinking by asking unanswered questions, such as: How could we...? What do you think would happen if…? Most importantly, we should trust the child's ability to devise solutions that we may not have thought of, and believe in their ability to contribute effectively, as the little bears did when helping the big bear.
The dialogue about feelings, desires, and thoughts of characters enhances children's social emotional capacity, and allows a deep understanding of the text.
Family Activities
- Let’s talk
- • About the need for help: We can talk about the feelings of the Big Bear before and after everyone cooperated to help him. We can ask our child: How did the bear feel when he could not find a place to sit? How did he feel after he found a place with the rest of the bears? We can name these feelings, and we can ask our child: Why did he have these feelings?
- • About the challenges we face: The Big Bear encounters a problem; we can ask our child: What is the problem? Did they encounter any problem? How did they get over it?
- • About our experiences of participation and cooperation: With our child, we can share an experience in which we cooperated with other people to help one of them, and then we can ask them about a similar experience they went through at home or in kindergarten: How did they feel when they cooperated with others, or when they provided assistance to those who needed it? How do they think the person they helped felt?
- Let’s enrich our language
- - Sensory-kinetic dictionary: the story contains sensory vocabulary, such as: cottony / soft, and contains kinaesthetic vocabulary, such as: dragging, standing, sitting. We can make their use easier in our daily life by describing various objects and different motor performances and allow our child to express their movements and actions with these words.
- - Dictionary of Mathematical Awareness: The story contains ordinal mathematical vocabulary, such as: the first, the second, two three, and five. We can practice and play with our position in the immediate family and the position of uncles and aunts in the extended family.
- Let’s explore
- We can search for various sources of information about bears: their types, food and livelihoods. We may also enjoy watching a documentary with our child about them.
- Let’s create
- With our children, we can prepare toy bears from different fabrics and materials available at home, such as: socks, shirts, buttons and coloured woollen threads.
- Let’s play together
- We can play a game of chairs together. We organize the chairs and spin around them to the sound of music. When the music stops, we have to sit on the chairs, and each time we drop one. Can we all sit on the same chair? Let's try!
- Enjoy your reading!