Family Style Dining in Preschool: Why It's Important

During the first few weeks of school, the children have been getting used to all of the new routines and expectations that are part of going to preschool. One of my favorite, and also one of the most important, routines we are establishing is family style dining.

What is Family Style Dining?

With family style dining, children are responsible for setting the table, helping to get snacks and meals ready, serving themselves at the table, and cleaning up when they are finished eating. At first this may seem like a lot to ask of preschool-aged children, but it is surprising how much young children are capable of and how much they enjoy being part of the entire meal experience. Of course the teachers are also there to help out and encourage whenever necessary.

The Benefits of Family Style Dining

When children participate in family stye dining, they learn:

- How to take turns as they pass the food around the table

-To share when they realize that everyone gets some of the food being served

-Table manners as they watch the teachers sitting properly, saying "please" and "thank you," passing the food, etc.

-Healthy eating habits when the teachers lead a discussion about the food they are eating

-Self-help skills as they take responsibility for their own food needs

-How to clean up after themselves

Family style dining also gives children the opportunity to practice important skills such as:

-Small motor skills when they scoop and pour

-Counting as they count out the appropriate number of crackers, apples, etc.

-One-to-one correspondence when they set the table 

-Conversation skills when everyone at the table talks about the food, what they did during the day, etc. 

When children participate in family style dining, they gain a sense of accomplishment as they realize that they can pour their own milk and scoop their own cereal. They gain self-confidence and become more independent when they are able to do these things on their own.

In my next blog post, I will explain and show how we do family style dining at Aspen Leaf Preschool.

Practicing Circles on the Map

This week my class has been very interested in sea animals, dolphins especially. One morning, one of the children noticed that there were pictures of dolphins on the world map that is hanging in the classroom.

I purchased this map last year and laminated it at my local Lakeshore Learning store (laminating is only 29 cents a foot there).

Since we have been working on our fine motor skills, I gave the children dry erase markers and asked them to circle all of the dolphins on the map. 

Everyone enjoyed this activity so much that we decided to also circle the whales, the sharks, and then all of the animals on the map!

When we were finished, our map looked like this. As you can see, there are lots of beautiful circles on it!

Digging for Treasure in the Sandbox

The first week of school at Aspen Leaf Preschool is drawing to a close. It has been so wonderful working with children again after three and a half months of getting the school ready and licensed. I have enjoyed getting to know the students and our new teacher, Miss Erin. We did lots of fun activities this week but I think everyone's favorite was digging for treasure!

  All week, the sandbox that my fiance built has been everyone's favorite place in the playground to play. The children just love digging and building in the sand. 

On Tuesday, some of the children were pretending to dig for buried treasure. When I noticed what they were doing, I racked my brain for something treasure-like that we actually could bury in the sand and I remembered these glass stones that I bought at the dollar store a few months ago. 

I brought them outside and the children helped me bury them all around the sandbox. Then we set to work digging them up again. Even though we had just buried the stones, some of them were surprisingly hard to find again.

  I'm pretty sure there are quite a few stones that we still haven't found.

After finding the "treasure", the children would sometimes line them up along the side of the sandbox...

or sort them by color.

Digging for treasure (as we call it) has become our favorite outdoor activity. We can't go into the playground without our stones and shovels anymore!