Capes! 3 Let's talk behavior.

I believe that our 3^rd night of Capes! was much better than the previous weeks. Cheers for us! The time went very fast when children actively engaged in the activities. The first activity, “Catch the Fox”, really helped them practicing some important social skills. As I mentioned in the last post, I think of improving the efficiency of communication and making sure they understand the instructions will be the first step to help us carry on the activities. The difficulties we have experienced in the past Capes! are holding their attention for a long enough period of time; so, they can follow the directions and carry on a certain activity. Our children were lack of those skills. As a result, they lost their attention with us and quickly started wandering around. So this time we changed our strategy to “one on one” by having one student teacher stand by a child to make sure he pays attention to the instructor—Jerilyn. Secondly, the student teacher models a behavior one at a time so the child can observe and duplicate the behavior. We threw the foxtails through the hoop, and so as they did. Feedback was given frequently during the activity so they know what the teachers' expectations were and what they were supposed to do. Overall, we have reached the objectives for the land time.

Getting into the pool was another story. L was afraid of water. When we got him into the water, he held on my neck tightly with his arms, his legs were twined around my legs, and repetitively said “wow, wow” in a shrill voice. I understand his fear of water, but his overreaction in the pool was inappropriate. He did not take any notice of his surrounding in the pool. Every move we made only made him became more nervous. Towards the end of lab, he was feeling more comfortable in the water, and he was able to play some games with one hand. “I did it, I did it!” L was very excited about his progress. I think the achievement he made and the confident he gained might help him improve his behavior; but I also guess he might go through the same emotion and express similar behavior when we meet again next time. Be, another child in the group, who loves the water, shows no fear in the water. So I think I will have L watch Be play in the water to help him overcome his fear. Also, I think we will use “one on one” strategy in the water. I will need Jerilyn to demonstrate some movements in the water for L.

I am looking forward to playing with them on next Tue.