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The last couple weeks the children have done nothing but argue and fight and tattle with each other all day! "I don't want her to sit beside me!", "She took my seat!", "You're mean!", "I want to hold your hand!", "No I want to!", "I don't want to hold her hand!", "She hit me!", "He yelled at me!" And then each sentence is ended in a loud scream and followed by lots of crying. And of course the more they fight, and the louder it gets and the more everyone else starts in with the fits and fighting, and more screaming and crying. They fought all through preschool today and through handwashing for snack and until everyone had finally settled on where they were going to sit at the table and had food in their mouth. I had some really fun activities planned for today, too, but we didn't get time for most of it because of all their fighting. And what we did get to, they fought the entire time with at least two (loudly)crying the entire time! I know to ignore their fighting and enocourage them work it out, but they immediately end in someone hitting the other, and the more I ignore it their fighting or tattling, the more it escalates until pretty soon everyone is screaming and I'm ready to tear my hair out and do some screaming of my own. WHAT is going on with them? SO sick of it.
They fight over everything, everytime we do ANYthing. If we tell them to go to the other room, that no one else wants to listen to it, they ignore us and continue. And they constantly interrupt stories or circle time with, "I can't see! x is in the way! SIT DOWN X!" Even if x is not in their way (or there's nothing to see), they think if anyone is anywhere near the area around them, they're in their way. And this is with all of them. I don't think there's been a single child that doesn't holler this at least once during a story or circle time. So during a what should be 10 min circle time, at least 11 children have yelled it at least once. And of course they have to start pushing each other with their foot to make them move over on the floor, which causes more crying.
What do you do when your group goes through this spell? I can use my firm voice all I want, but they're not paying any attention. It sounds so easy to "just ignore it and let them work it out", but even if they don't end up hitting someone, they just continue with no sign of ending it or working it out. They KNOW how to work their problems out. They show they know how time and again during a "normal" day, but when they go through this spell, they forget all that, it seems.
They fight over everything, everytime we do ANYthing. If we tell them to go to the other room, that no one else wants to listen to it, they ignore us and continue. And they constantly interrupt stories or circle time with, "I can't see! x is in the way! SIT DOWN X!" Even if x is not in their way (or there's nothing to see), they think if anyone is anywhere near the area around them, they're in their way. And this is with all of them. I don't think there's been a single child that doesn't holler this at least once during a story or circle time. So during a what should be 10 min circle time, at least 11 children have yelled it at least once. And of course they have to start pushing each other with their foot to make them move over on the floor, which causes more crying.
What do you do when your group goes through this spell? I can use my firm voice all I want, but they're not paying any attention. It sounds so easy to "just ignore it and let them work it out", but even if they don't end up hitting someone, they just continue with no sign of ending it or working it out. They KNOW how to work their problems out. They show they know how time and again during a "normal" day, but when they go through this spell, they forget all that, it seems.
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I think the rainy weather has a lot to do with it. We've had 3 days in a row that we were able to play outside, and their moods have improved a LOT from what they were the last couple weeks. I do think one of our new children are causing some of it, like some of you mentioned. Everyone will be sitting down doing an activity together, and having fun with it, and he'll burst out with something like, "This is boring, boring, boring! I hate being in this dumb class." Just a really bad attitude. He'll be in Kindergarten next year (he's 5), but has never been in preschool or daycare of any kind before, so he has a lot to learn in just a few month's time. He just started here the end of last month, but I think he could catch up and learn quickly if he could just improve his attitude. Right now he doesn't seem to even want to learn anything except how to make x give him his way 
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