Jewish Values and Bullying

As educators we are all worried about Bullys and kids being unkind to their peers. 3 and 4 year olds are testing the power of their words and learning how to be good friends but sometimes they cross the line and it can become bullying. We were beginning to have this problem in one of our 4 year old classrooms. One of the teachers in the room pulled the 2 boys aside who were not being kind to some of the other kids and started talking to them about Superheros and what makes a Superhero. They knew that Superheros are kind, ( Derech Eretz),  help other people (creating Shalom Bayit) and do "good" things for people. The discussion was then taken to the whole class about what makes a superhero and what qualities in each of the kids in the class are super hero qualities. The children came up with great examples how each of their friends were superheros. The children understood the concept because when one child was being unkind to his friend another child reported that "Joey" was not being a superhero. This was reinforced even more in another 3 year old class where they were talking about Princesses and how Sarah was the first Princess in the Torah and Sarah means Princess. They talked about the kind of person Sarah was (speaking kindly to others, Shmirat Lasho) and what a Princess should be.

Tza'ar Ba'alei Chayim, Taking care of animals

Taking care of animals whether in the classroom or at home was a great theme in one of the 3 year old classes.
The children leaned that in the Talmud it tells us we should not buy an animal unless we can take care of it and we should feed our animals before we feed ourselves.
In school the kids experienced taking care of the classroom fish as well as some visiting birds to learn about the responsibilities of caring for our feather friends.
The children made bird feeders by stringing Cheerios on a string and hanging them on a neighborhood tree.
All the kids went to the class pet shop to purchase a stuffed pet. They will keep them in their cubbies all week-name them, feed them , play with them and take them for walks.