Silent Time?

[4evermom]

My ds's pre-k class of 3-4 year olds has a period of silence, maybe a couple minutes long. I knew this was done in K and up at his school (Quaker) but was surprised that it is done in pre-k. I'm wondering how developmentally appropriate this is, and how much stress it might be placing on the kids. They seem happy when it is over. They clap and yell "yay!"

[lauren]

I think as long as it's really that short and no one is being shamed for messing up it sounds fine. It may help teach them self-regulation!

[flyingspaghettimama]

In Montessori, there is even a game of it, called the "silence game." I played it at storytimes...the children seemed to like it. For my group, it was about self-regulation because they couldn't even make it through one book without constant, consistent interruptions and no attention span. They weren't kids who were ever read to, let's put it that way. They were 4 and 5 or so.

At least in our case, because it was a game, the kids yelled "yay" at the end because they were feeling proud of themselves. After the quiet time, we talked about what we'd heard (ie rain, cars, baby crying, someone typing on the computer, the library checkout beeping). We played a lot with sound volume control: whispering, silence, loudness...etc. For example, sing a song loudly, whispering, and without any noise. The last one cracked them up the most...and we were finally able to get through a whole book without someone yelling, "peanut butter!!!" Randomly.

[4evermom]

Thanks for your viewpoints. I think learning self regulation is great but this teacher is rather authoritarian, much to my dismay, and children who aren't silent will be (gently) corrected. It is not done as a game or in a playful way.

[Kerlowyn]

This thread brought up a fond memory for me when I was in Kindergarten (public school, 37 years ago!) We would all come in from recess, all wild . We would sit at our desks, and put our heads down. Our teacher would speak softly to us, till we were all close to a drowzy stupor! She had 2 big teddy bears, and while our heads were down she would place one on a boy's desk, the other a girl's. After a while, we were all calmed down and it would be story time. You got to hold the teddy bears during story time. How special it was to have the bear! We had a small class, so everyone got a turn bearholding often

[4evermom]

That's a sweet story .