Integrating "The New Kid"

I know you've all been there before. You just get your classroom up and functioning, everyone is excited about being in your room (at least for the moment)....Your classroom schedule is, for the most part, working like a fine oiled machine and your short friends are enjoying your activities. Your creative side is paying off and you begin to see the light at the end of tunnel when everyone is recognizing their names, excelling in their fine motor skills and standards across the board (ideally anyway haha)....

Then your new friend comes into the classroom like a wrecking ball! "Crash, bang, boom" (In a People House by Dr. Seuss as Theo. LeSeig)...Toys fly here, toys fly there...there's no sense of self and the last thing your new friend wants to do is pull his pants up before walking out of the little potty in your classroom. Ugh...you're back at square one...Do you cry or do you take a deep breath and realize you can do this?

Of course, you can do this. You were born for this...picture yourself as Indiana Jones in the Raiders of the Lost Ark. You can get out of the snake pit and you can stare down the voice in your head that asks you why you committed to this career.

Now that I have your attention, take a deep breath for real this time and start looking at how far you've come...Make a new classroom safety list/rules and enlist your new friend as the list maker...he can draw pictures to illustrate what things are safe and standard rules in your classroom...You can dictate under his pictures and then enlist your entire classroom to vote on a place to hang it in your room (or find pictures to cut out from old magazines and allow everyone to glue them to your rules list). Assign an old friend to walk with your new friend everyday for a few weeks so that every student has a turn helping your new friend learn the classroom flow. It's Buddy time (never bad for social emotional development, especially for our younger friends).

Before you know it, your new friend will be moving and grooving. I would love to hear other ideas about how to integrate new friends to your ECE classrooms.