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​Establishing and Maintaining Relationships - Pre-K - K

Interact in pro-social ways (e.g., reciprocal conversation, turn taking, sharing) with peers and adults
Engage in reciprocal communication with peers and adults
Recognize that conflict occurs and identify ways to respond​

Interact in pro-social ways (e.g., reciprocal conversatio​n, turn taking, sharing) with peers and adults

Performance Indicators
The learner will:
Supportive Practices
The adult will:
Teaching Strategies
  • Engage in reciprocal conversation with familiar peers and adults.
  • Respond to familiar adult's questions and directions.
  • Interact with others for a purpose
  • Play cooperatively for a sustained period of time.
  • Respect feelings and belongings of others.

     

     
  • Conduct a morning meeting during which students share a compliment with their peers.
  •  Model appropriate methods and strategies of interaction based on school and community culture.
  • Talk about ideas related to school work, play, and home life.
  • Arrange the environment to encourage collaboration.
  •  Provide duplicate materials so students can play together. 
  • Set timers to encourage material or equipment sharing.
  •  Incorporate daily blocks of time for uninterrupted student-directed play.
  •  Provide daily opportunities for individual conversations between students and adults.
  • Describe others' feelings during difficult situations.
  • Use literature as a teaching strategy for appropriate and inappropriate interaction
  • Use children's literature for teaching students friendship skills (e.g., Hunter's Best Friend at School and Best Friends for Frances).
  • Have students practice saying "please," "thank you," and "excuse me" when appropriate.
  • Use specific feedback to encourage students when they listen well (e.g., Thank you for listening when I was talking.).
  • Ask students to find and share three things they have in common with a friend and three things that are different.
  • Rehearse appropriate questions students can ask guest speakers about their jobs for an upcoming career day.

Engage in reciprocal communication with peers and adults

Performance Indicators
The learner will:
Supportive Practices
The adult will:
Teaching Strategies
  • Provide responses related to topic posed by adults and peers.
  • Communicate using detail related to topic.  
  • Allow wait time before responding.
  • Engage in turn taking when communicating with others.
     
  • Explicitly restate comments made by students and encourage those responding to add further detail or contribute further to the topic being discussed.
  •  Explicitly teach students what a question is.
  • Help students create and pose questions to initiate or continue a conversation.
  • Model acceptable conversational cues. (e.g., wait time, turn-taking).
  • Talk about events that are currently relevant to students.
  • Have students practice posing and answering questions with peers and adults.

Recognize that conflict occurs and identify ways to respond

Performance Indicators
The learner will:
Supportive Practices
The adult will:
Teaching Strategies
  • Use words and actions to express one's own desires in ways that respect others.
  • Identify a problem and discuss possible solutions.
  • Solve simple conflicts with peers. (e.g., share, take turns, apologize, try something else, ask for help)
  • Use words to negotiate conflicts before seeking help.
  • Model, teach, and discuss possible strategies for resolving conflict. (e.g., use of puppets, role-playing, stories demonstrating conflict resolution)
  • Be open and available to help students resolve conflicts. (e.g., "I" messages) 
  • Teacher holds class discussions so students can solve class problems.
  • Teach students to use "I" messages to communicate feelings in a conflict situation.
  • Design an area in the room that encourages students to solve conflicts.
  • Utilize children's literature to discuss ways the characters resolved a conflict.  Students can illustrate that part of the story.
  • Have students work in pairs using puppets to identify conflicts and show responses. Use class discussion to determine whether the conflict needs an adult helper.
  • Provide students with opportunities to problem solve by stating the problem clearly and providing ground rules to discuss the problem rationally to arrive at a solution.