Thursday, September 30, 2021
2 Simple Ways To Teach Your Child To Put On Their Coat Independently
2 Simple Ways To Teach Your Child To Put On Their Coat Independently
As a preschool teacher, one of the most stressful times of the day can be getting ready to go outside. Putting on your child's coat may not seem like a big deal, but it can be a time-consuming activity when you have 20+ students in a classroom. We want our students to spend their time learning or playing. Not putting on coats!
How can we help them without doing everything for them? I want to share my two favorite ways to teach children to put on their own coats.
Why Should I Encourage My Child To Put On Their Own Coat?
As parents and teachers, we want to do what is best for our children. We want to take care of them and help them, but sometimes we are hurting them by not allowing them the time to do these things independently. Allowing your child to dress themselves enables them to learn skills they will need in their day-to-day lives. Something as simple as putting on a coat helps your child with balance, coordination, flexibility, and strength. Your child will also build necessary self-confidence by doing these things independently.
How Do I Teach My Child To Put On Their Own Coat?
Over the years, parents and teachers have tried many ways of teaching children to put on their coats. I am going to teach you my two favorite tricks! These are effective methods that have been used for decades and handed down. They are simple to teach and easy to learn... with a bit of practice, of course!
Flip & Zip: The Magic Coat Trick
This is my favorite method to teach children. We call it the Flip & Zip method in my classroom. This method is excellent because you can use it with ANY type of coat. You do not need a hood for this trick to work.
- Have your child/student place the coat on the floor or a table with the armholes facing up.
- Show them how to stand by the hood/tag/neck of the coat.
- Place their arms inside the armholes and have them flip the coat over their head.
- The coat will easily slide on and will be ready for zipping!
Once the child learns where to stand, they will be putting their coats on without assistance in no time! My assistant and I wait for our students to Flip and come over to us for a Zip until they are ready to learn the zipping part.
Give your child enough space to Flip & Zip without hitting anyone with their arms or coat! If you have a large classroom, allow only a few students to go get their coats at a time.
The Hat Helper Trick
This method is another excellent way to learn how to put on a coat. However, your child will need a hood for this trick to work. We call this the Hat Helper trick.
- Have your child/student first place the hood of the coat on their head.
- Gently pull the coat with the opposite arm and slide your arm in the hole.
- Now place the other arm in the armhole using the same method.
You will not need as much space to do the Hat Helper trick, which is helpful in a busy classroom setting.
Practice, Practice, Practice!
Give your child time to practice! This is a new skill that will take time to perfect.
- Don't ask your child to get their coat on when you need to head out the door. Give them plenty of time to achieve the task without feeling rushed.
- Don't help unless you are truly needed. It's hard to see our children struggle, but doing it for them takes away the learning opportunity and will make the task harder to learn. Explain, encourage, and then, only if they are really tried their best, help them.
Friday, September 17, 2021
How To Use Bingo Games To Teach Colors To Preschool Children
It's that time of year again! I just welcomed 21 new students into my classroom a few weeks ago. We spend our first weeks working on rules, routines, and just getting to know each other. Once we start settling into a routine it's time for me to get an idea of what these new students already know. One of my favorite ways to learn and review colors is to use Color Bingo games.
Using Color Themed Bingo Games To Teach Colors
Every year I will have students who come to my classroom knowing their colors already, and I will also have students who can't name a single color. It is important to have games and activities that both sets of children can enjoy playing. That's why I created my Color Bingo games. By holding up the picture, saying the color, and then having the children search for the picture on their game board, I am reinforcing the name of the color and letting them search for it to connect the name to the color. You can hold up the picture and ask the students to name the color for you. The more we play these games the more students begin to learn colors and connect the name to the color.
I currently have two Color Bingo games that I use with my students. I will talk more about them below.
Dinosaur Color Bingo
My students are learning about Dinosaurs for the next two weeks! Dinosaurs are so much fun to learn about, so I wanted to have a connecting color activity for them. I created Dinosaur Color Bingo for the very beginning of the school year.
This game has only 9 spaces on the card making it an easy bingo game for students who may have never played bingo before. There are 11 colors included, so not every card will have every color.
Show your students the dinosaur card that you draw from your pile and have them name the color out loud. Then have them find the color on their card and place a bingo chip or other type of marker on that spot. Continue until someone gets three across or three down.
Color Bingo
Once your students get the hang of how to play bingo, you may want to continue playing color bingo games with a slightly harder game. Color Bingo has 16 spaces and includes 22 pictures. That is 2 pictures for each color.
Color Bingo is great to use for practice throughout the year. Sometimes I just pull it out to make sure we are not forgetting what we learned earlier in the year. Sometimes we just play it because it's fun!
Are you ready to play Bingo? Grab these Bingo games and many more by going to my TPT Store HERE.
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About me
The Purple Daisy Teaching Resources was created as a way to share my educational creations to parents and teachers who need these types of activities.