Finished early? You can....

 Every classroom has students who finish their work early, and ECE is not an exception! This is something I posted in an area of my classroom specifically for a student who often finished tasks early.

We practiced these yoga poses during circle time. Kids who maintain a quiet body, thinking brain, looking eyes, and a kind heart (see post on Whole Body Listening) throughout circle time got to pick out three yoga poses, which we did as a class. The kids definitely had their favorites including butterfly and airplane poses :-)

Whole Body Listening stategies

Last year my district sent me and other Early Childhood Education teachers to the Social Thinking Conference. It was a great experience, I learned a lot and acquired some goodies! One of them was this Whole Body Listening poster. It is posted in my classroom and I often refer to it in order to remind students of behavior expectation at circle.
We go over all of the "body parts" during the first weeks of school and talk about what it looks like to have "looking eyes" or "thinking brain". Since many of my students struggle with receptive communication skills, I try to use as many visuals as possible. We look at photos of people and talk about their body position, their gaze, etc. We also play a game where I look at something or someone and ask the kids to tell me who or what I am "thinking" about.

At the end of circle time, I ask one of my Educational Assistants to tell me who they think demonstrated best whole body listening skills. As a reward the child gets to pick out a song, or depending on the month, yoga poses, or animal moves which we do as a group.I got this idea from one of the Tasks Galore books.

Song menu