Happy Holidays!

As 2014 draws to a close and our students engage in the Holiday festivities here at Berwick, I continue to be awed by their ability to balance the excitement of receiving, with the joy of giving. I have seen examples of empathy, caring and friendship in all of the grades, both on individual levels as well as in school wide initiatives to give to those less fortunate. Conversations with individuals or groups of students have focused very little on what they want for themselves, but instead, on how they plan to spend quality time with families over the holidays, or initiatives that they and their families are undertaking to be sure that children in their communities have enough toys and food.

The kindergarten students ran their annual hat and mitten drive; the second graders made lovely ornaments for the Unified Arts teachers (thanks to a wonderful parent who provided the supplies and assistance), and the third Graders’ food drive yielded over 500 items for the South Berwick food Pantry! More recently, they invited their parents to assist with the design and architecture of the most amazingly decorated gingerbread houses I have ever seen.

 But I have to say that the most anticipated annual 4^th Grade yard sale gave all students the opportunity to buy new or gently used toys and books with the money donated to a charity of the 4^th Graders’ choice. This incredibly fun event allowed me to witness the sensitivity of our 4^th Graders as they helped our little ones to pick out gifts for their family members and/or themselves! The highlight of the event for me was helping a pre-K youngster pay for and carry a wooden house he bought for a classmate who wanted to buy it but had forgotten to bring his money!

In SEL classes, we talked about what we would be doing over the holidays and if anyone thought they might be receiving gifts. All raised their hands with delight, until I asked the dreaded question: “What would you do if you received a gift that you didn't really like?” It didn't take very long for many of them to respond that they would express gratitude toward the giver, appreciating the time and thought involved in selecting or making the gift. Even our youngest students were able to articulate the importance of gratitude and how it makes others feel to be appreciated for their efforts. Listening to these thoughtful and heartfelt responses confirmed once again all that their parents and caregivers do to instill the concepts of kindness and empathy. Your devotion to both their academic as well as social emotional wellness is inspiring.

After our lesson, the students worked diligently making ornaments, sharing their excitement regarding who would be the recipient of these handmade treasures! Once again, no talk about what they hoped for for themselves, but what they could make and do for family and friends!

I know that I speak for Marilena and all of the faculty and staff in the Lower School in thanking you once again for your unending support and for instilling kindness and compassion in your children. We wish you the happiest of holidays and look forward to seeing you all in 2015!

5 Senses

12-14-2014

Can you imagine what your everyday life would be like without your five senses?  This week, the students explored what it would be like to lose some of their senses and relied on others.  The kindergarten had to use their sense of hearing to identify different sounds.   They learned that ear makes up two separate parts; the outer ear and the inner ear.  Your ear is made up of cartilage and skin that works like a cup to catch the sound as it travels past your head.  Sound travels from there to the tympanic membrane to the three smallest bones in your body.  From there it travels to the cochlea (the inner ear) and through a spiral shaped tube with changes vibrations into sound and sends that message to the brain.  Your brain uses the sound from both ears to determine the direction and distance of sound.       

The first graders loss their sense of sight by being blindfolded and they had to identify objects by their sense of touch.  The students had to describe to the class what the object felt like.  After they used descriptive words, they had to guess what the object was while still blindfolded.

The second grade will do their activity next week.  They will loss their sense of sight and have to use their sense of hearing to identify everyday objects hidden in containers.   They will learn about the eye and how it is similar to a camera.  The lens of the eye is at the front of your eyeball and helps to focus images onto the retina that is on the back of your eye.  The retina is covered with two different light sensitive cells called cones and rods.  The cones allow you to see color and the rods allow you to see better at night and with your peripheral vision.  All the information is sent to the brain upside down and the brain flips it right side up.  

The third graders worked on their sense of touch with a braille activity.  They used the braille alphabet to decode a message.  They were able to use their sense of sight and touch to decode this message. 

The fourth graders combined their sense of sight, hearing, touch, and smell and had to go through an obstacle course while blindfolded.  They had a partner guide them through an obstacle course.  The first time the students went through, they could only listen to their partner, but could not see where they were going.  The second time the group went through, they could only receive silent signals from their partner.  The third time they went through the obstacle walkway, their partner was on the perimeter of the gymnasium giving verbal directions. 

Childhood Resilience

On Wednesday, November 12th I had the pleasure of addressing some of our parents at the Lower School coffee. Having the opportunity to talk about childhood resilience was both exciting but daunting, considering not only the many factors involved in the formation of a resilient child, but also the time constraints I had to follow! But thanks to the patience of everyone there, I was able to cover a few of those aspects of resilience that we as caring and nurturing adults can consider as we prepare our children to deal with adversity and diversity in their increasingly globalized world. So I am presenting an outline of my talk and encourage you to comment, ask questions or drop in to my office to chat more about this important topic if you'd like! And do overlook the typos please!!!

Resilience - November 12, 2014

“Resilient children, those who are happy and successful, learn to manage their emotions, thoughts, and behaviors in part through the common denominator of living, working with and being educated by available and caring adults.” - Robert Brooks, Ph.D.

What is resilience?

• The ability of a child to cope with everyday challenges, to bounce back from disappointments, adversity, to develop clear and realistic goals, to solve problems, to relate comfortably with others, and to treat oneself and others with respect.

Why has this become such an important topic?

As our children’s world becomes more globalized, they are confronted with numerous challenges and demands. Their overall success will depend upon their ability to be self-aware as they set personal, academic social and career goals. Additionally, their ability to empathize and learn from mistakes will enhance empathic communications as they interact with others whose viewpoints and cultures differ from theirs.

How does resilience affect academic performance? Social interactions? Personal coping and problem solving?

Academic Performance:

• Sustained effort in the face of challenge
• Coping with failure
• Learning from mistakes
• Problem solving
• Goal setting
• Eagerness to engage in new learning
• Awareness of personal strengths

Social Interactions:

• Ability to initiate and maintain friendships
• Ability to empathize/put self in the shoes of another
• Being able to communicate empathically and reciprocally
• Understanding the importance of both verbal and nonverbal communication
• Understanding the impact of one’s behaviors on others
• Ability to manage one’s emotions
• Ability to inhibit impulses when interacting with others
• ability to withstand peer pressure
• Ability to express gratitude and appreciation

Personal coping:

• Ability to label and understand one’s emotions
• Ability to understand and appreciate others’ emotions
• Establishing personal goals and sub-goals.
• Developing effective strategies for coping with disappointment
• Sustained effort despite challenges - not giving up
• Being able to ask for assistance from trusted peers and adults
• Being able to communicate with compassion
• Being able to demonstrate creativity (thinking outside the box) when faced with a problem
• Being appropriately assertive when asking for what one needs
• Ability to rewrite negative scripts to take control of and re-direct thoughts and behaviors
• Self-acceptance

At Home - What adults can do:

• Role model resilient behaviors:
• Encourage and articulate problem solving strategies.
• Demonstrate active listening when speaking with your child.
• Demonstrate empathic communication.
• Demonstrate sustained effort and goal setting.
• Praise you child for his/her effort rather than being "smart"
• Encourage creative problem solving with your children.
• Encourage kind and caring behaviors
• Encourage cooperation when dealing with others
• Encourage your child to express gratitude

At School:

• Social Emotional Learning - 5 components: Self awareness, self-management, social awareness, relationship skills, responsible decision making and problem solving
• Teachers role modeling empathic behaviors
• Encouraging the conflict resolution strategies which focus on perspective taking
• Encourage risk taking when it comes to new learning
• Reinforcement of effort as opposed to intelligence.
• Behavior management (being aware of strategies for self-management)
• Awareness of behaviors the are expected/unexpected and their impact on others (schoolwide initiative)
• Communication with parents through SEL blog
• Mindfulness
• Passports to World Culture (awareness of and respect for diversity)

Areas related to Resilience which are focused upon in SEL classes and throughout the day:

• Empathy
• Gratitude
• Empathic communication
• Perspective taking
• Re-writing negative scripts
• Accepting ourselves for who we are
• Making decisions/solving problems
• Learning from mistakes
• Learning self-management

While this is just an outline of my presentation, it gives an idea of what you, as loving caregivers, and we, as nurturing faculty, can focus upon as we develop kind, caring, resilient and empathic individuals!

What to do when you're "Bombaloo"!

In last week's SEL classes, we addressed some of the emotions that make us at times feel scared or out of control, as well as some of the ways we can manage them. Our younger students were read various stories designed to acknowledge feelings of anger, and what to do with these feelings. One of our favorite books is "Sometimes I'm Bombaloo" by Rachael Vail and Yumi Heo, and I had the opportunity to read it aloud to the 2nd Graders. They were riveted by the story of Katie Honors, a self-described good kid who brushes her teeth and performs other chores with a positive attitude. In fact most of the time she feels pretty happy except when her little brother continually knocks down the castles she constructs with colorful blocks. Then she becomes "bombaloo", which is the name she gives this feeling of extreme anger which frightens her and causes her to use her feet and fists instead of her words. With a little help form her mother, and time by herself to think and take deep breaths, she eventually calms down and repairs her rift with her brother.
The 2nd Graders loved being able to relate some of the experiences which make them "bombaloo", as well as ways they can calm down. Speaking to trusted adults was mentioned many times, a tribute to the grown ups who love and nurture them.
We completed our lesson with ways to self-calm after removing oneself from an emotional situation. We modeled deep relaxing breaths, gently inhaling for 3 seconds, holding the breath for 3 seconds then slowly exhaling for 3 seconds. Each child was allowed to hold a colorful feather in order to gage the gentleness of their breath, and to our delight, they loved this exercise!
We talked about how relaxing breaths can make us feel calm even when we are not feeling an intense emotion.
And of course, Marilena's adaptation of this activity to a movement related exercise invited the children to sit and practice this breathing exercise after being tagged by a designated student!
We will continue to practice these types of relaxation exercises as the year moves along so that our students can learn to manage their emotions when faced with challenges. Hopefully they will use these strategies in other environments as well!

inhaling for 3 seconds, holding the breath for 3 seconds then slowly exhaling for 3 seconds

Bones

Halloween is just around the corner and it is a great time of the year to learn about our skeleton.  The students are learning about the structure of their body and how important it is .  They are learning what their bones are made of, what their purpose is, and how they work. The students are going to be putting together a skeleton and learning the different names of the bones.  Here is a link for more information on your bones.  http://kidshealth.org/kid/cancer_center/HTBW/bones.html#

3rd Graders putting the bones together

Mr. Bones

1st Grade doing exercises

What do airplanes have to do with Social Emotional Learning?

Our 4th Graders never cease to amaze us! For the past few weeks, our Social Emotional Learning classes have focused on friendship initiation and maintenance. Students have "interviewed" each other to determine the interests of as well as commonalities with peers. Among the many goals of this exercise was the appreciation of the diversity with which each student presents. As we learn about our differences, we also learn to find joy in those things that we have in common, and hopefully see our peers with fresh eyes. This was accomplished as the students practiced their listening skills asking their partners such questions as "What do you like to do in your spare time?", or "What kinds of sports do you like to play?". In our group discussion, the students were happy to report things they had learned about their partner that they didn't know before, as well as things that they might like to do together.

We followed this class with a related activity where they were asked to fill out a Friendly Behaviors Checklist, where they were asked to rate themselves on such qualities as "inviting others to play, " or "being a good sport if I lose". Students responded as either being good at it or needing to work on the skill. The honesty in their responses allowed them to think about what goals they would like to accomplish as they develop their own friendship skills. After a bit of discussion, one of the students asked me if he could make a paper airplane out of his page, and, after a bit of thought, I decided that it would be a great idea! So we encouraged all of the students to make paper airplanes with their quiz sheets, and after they were completed, threw them up in the air (at the count of 3), and then pick one up to read. As the students did not write their names on the papers, anonymity was preserved! The point was that the students had the opportunity to see that we all have friendship goals to work on as we go through our lives. They also found that the most common response needing work was "Remembering something important in a friends' life and asking about it"!

Airplanes flying

Airplanes landing

What they looked like

And, as you know, the students love to role play, so we finished this exercise with groups of 3 role playing the various scenarios on the quiz page. They had such fun with this and did such a great job! They asked to do this more frequently (the role playing, not the paper airplanes, although, they no doubt would enjoy more of that as well)!

So congratulations to the 4th Graders for being such wonderful, caring friends and airplane flyers!

Moving Right Along....

I'm not exactly sure how this first month of school managed to slip by so quickly, but I am both inspired and excited about the willingness of our students to "think outside of the box" as they engage in our SEL classes. The first month of school has focused on Self-Awareness, which is a critical first step toward the acquisition of social skills on any level. We have challenged our students to identify and label their own feelings under various circumstances, as well as to practice and role play problem solving strategies to repair social situations as they arise. We have also talked about times when we can solve our own problems, as well as how we can ask for help, depending upon the need. I am always amazed at how well the children role play specific situations at a moment's notice, brainstorm solutions as a group, then demonstrate new learning both in class and around campus throughout the day!

The next month or so will concentrate the understanding of how our feelings affect our behaviors, and consequently those of others with whom we come in contact throughout the day. We will talk about perspective taking, caring about the feelings and viewpoints of others, and being aware of others' perceptions of us based upon our actions. We will rehearse active listening skills and
empathic responding to the feelings and concerns of our friends. So please feel free to talk about these activities at home and practice the kinds of listening skills your children will learn. Making eye contact, nodding to confirm understanding, taking turns speaking and giving the type of feedback that indicates understanding are important and can be practiced everywhere!

Social Emotional Learning at home!

SEL at Berwick Academy follows the continuum from self-awareness to Social responsibility/decision making and the 3 competencies in between, as outlined in our first posting. We start with self awareness, since we know that in order for a child for be able to appreciate the viewpoints and feelings of others (the building blocks of empathy), they have to be able to be aware of and label their own feelings. Methods ranging from role plays to discussions to tag games enhance our students's ability to not only identify their feelings, but also to cope with them and to seek help when needed.
We find that childrens' learning is greatly enhanced when lessons are reinforced at home. For example, with younger children, the use of "feelings faces" to guess feelings can be reinforced by questions such as "Why do you think this person has a sad face?" or "What could he do or who could he talk to so he wouldn't feel so sad?
Another exercise with all age groups would be to turn off the sound of your child's favorite TV show and have them guess what the characters are feeling by looking at their facial expressions or their body language. After all, there is lots of research finding that 95% of all communication is nonverbal!
Understanding our own and others' feelings are critical first steps in the formation of solid relationships, which in turn are critical to our emotional and physical well being. The addition of courses in compassion and altruism at most of the major universities throughout the world further validates the impact of social emotional learning on academic and life success.
I love having parents tell me that they ask their children what they learned in SEL during the week, and reinforce this at home!

Social Thinking Chart

9-15-2014

Social Thinking Chart:

In class this week, we are reviewing the Social Thinking Chart.  The students are working on being able to decipher different scenarios according to which characteristic applies to each of the different situations.     

  

Example:

You are embarrassed when Sally enters the class and loudly says to you: "I herd that you dropped your tray at lunch!"