Love is the Language

I can’t believe how quickly a week goes by with the school year in full swing. I am getting to know all my little darlings better each day. Last year I began the year by having one of my students eat lunch with me daily. I make sure they all have a turn to come to lunch. I am doing this again with my current class. During our lunch, I give them the five love languages survey for children to get a sense of what their primary love language is. After all the students have had a turn I switch it to a weekly lunch date with a few of them at a time until each gets a turn again. During school, we discuss all the love languages and different school appropriate ways to fill our love tanks. I found last year the love languages really helped my classroom climate. We became a family and the children found ways to show each other and me love. We talked about our five love languages daily and on how we could fill each other’s love tanks. We also use the program Second Step: a social emotional program using stories and strategies. There is one situation from last year that stands out to me. While at recess one of my students fell and got hurt and within moments almost the entire class had surrounded her to make sure she was ok. I was not present during this event, so they did it without prompting. One of the other kindergarten teachers told me about it. This happened again one other time during the school year with a different student. The love languages has helped me grow as a person.