A child constantly learns. Each new experience creates opportunities to acquire life lessons. Preschool teaches and reinforces skills in an enriching environment. By interacting with each other and receiving gentle guidance from teachers, preschoolers learn valuable skills, qualities, and values.
Making good decisions
When young children interact with each other, there are many opportunities to learn from the decisions that are made. As they play and work on an activity together, they quickly figure out which behaviors are acceptable and which are not. They get to test the limits while seeing the direct consequences of their actions. Through their interactions, they learn, for example, that cooperation is welcomed approvingly while pushing or grabbing clues to lose privileges. By acting out different scenarios and experiencing the outcome of different choices, children discover how to make good decisions in a safe group setting.
Communicate well
Through songs, games, and age-appropriate lessons, young students learn to communicate well. In addition to acquiring basic writing skills, they are practicing speaking in complete sentences, verbally asking what they want, and explaining their point of view. Each school day provides new opportunities to verbalize ideas and express them to patient peers and teachers. Communication may be simple at first, but with practice, even the quietest preschooler will soon know how to communicate effectively one-on-one and in a group.
Making friends
This important lifelong skill can flourish in preschool. Young children learn the essentials of making friends. They discover how to be good friends and have the opportunity to experience friendships with classmates who may have different interests, abilities, and backgrounds.
Helping others
Children have a natural desire to help others. When preschool teachers trained in classroom dynamics and human behavior guide this innate inclination, a child can display qualities such as compassion and empathy. In class, children are encouraged to help each other. When a preschooler sees his peers helping each other, he strengthens that innate desire to help others.
Exchange
A preschool setting also greatly encourages sharing. An activity like coloring, for example, naturally creates an opportunity to share crayons. Playing with toys, puzzles, and building blocks also leads to informal lessons on cooperating and sharing, as well as being patient, taking turns, and working as a team.
Develop confidence
The early classroom setting offers great opportunities to try new things and, over time, excel at them. This process of repeatedly trying something to success is the way to build confidence. In addition, activities that give a child the opportunity to contribute in a visible and meaningful way build self-confidence.
Participating in show and count or serving as a classroom helper can increase and reinforce the sense of confidence in all preschool-age children. This can-do attitude developed early in life will carry over into the primary and secondary grades to give each child the inner strength necessary to confidently embrace life at every stage.