Peace is:
"Seeing my dad at carpool" - Ibou
"Being with my family" - Owen
"Seeing a rainbow" - Bryce
"Painting at the easel" - Leila
"Being with my mommy" - Lucey
"Me in the sun" - Rose
Recently in Life Skills, we began a lesson on Win-Win Solutions. Usually when there is a conflict, one party gets to win and the other party has to compromise. During this lesson, we discussed ways in which both parties could win. We read a story called The Two Donkeys, and did some role playing. The donkeys in the story were tied to a rope, which was not long enough to enable them both to reach their piles of food simultaneously. The donkeys began to argue and became hungry and tired from pulling the other, trying to reach their piles of food. Eventually they came up with the bright idea of sharing and taking turns, and were both satisfied in the end.
Our last Life Skills lesson was Mean VS. Strong. Our focus was self-management. We are also working on building relationship skills. We read an interactive story called The Sun and the Wind, which talked about the differences between being mean and being strong. The wind thought he was stronger than the sun, and used a big mean voice to try to prove it. The sun was very modest, but proved to be more powerful than the wind in the end.
After listening to the story and having a discussion, we did a little role playing. We discussed ways that we could handle our anger (or other emotion) when someone does something mean to us, without retaliating in a mean way. Some of those ways were counting to ten, walking away and taking a few deep breaths. Take a look at the photo below.
Learning outcomes:
- Students will be able to distinguish between aggressive communication and assertive communication.
- Students will discuss the advantages of assertive communication.
This week's Life Skills theme is Different Feelings. Our focus is Social Awareness and Relationship skills. The learning outcome is that students will be able to identify and name different feelings. We were able to participate in two activities this week; Feelings Soup and Centipede. With Feelings soup, we gathered on the area rug and each of us had a white board with the name of a feeling on it. They were sad, angry, excited, happy, surprised, and scared. While we each held the white board up, we had to show the corresponding feeling on our faces. The Centipede activity called for a little movement. We lined up one behind the other and put our hands on the shoulders of the person in front of us and walked around the classroom. When Chanelle called out a feeling, we had to freeze and show that feeling on our faces. This activity was a lot of fun.
Our current theme for Life Skills is Being Kind. We thought of a list of things that describe what kindness is to us. We also listened to a story about kindness. It was called, The Flower, The Cloud, and The Wind. The story was about a flower on a hill that was beginning to droop and wilt because it had not rained in a very long time, and the flower had not been watered. The cloud was passing by and noticed the flower, and decided to help. The cloud asked the wind to blow him toward the river so that he could get some water to help the flower. They worked together to help save the flower.
After reading the story, Chanelle put on a puppet show for us. We loved it! Ask us what the puppet show was about. Hint: Being Kind.
Activity: Chocolate River
Goal: To get everyone across the river without anyone falling in (first individually, then as a group, holding hands)
Focus: Cooperation, Relationship skills
Learning Outcomes: Students will be able to define cooperation in their own words.
Students will be able to cooperate with each other to reach a common goal.
Our Life Skills curriculum comes from the Connected and Respected Program. Throughout the school year, we focus on creating a caring and productive learning community. Using the Workshop Approach, we role play, play games and participate in activities, watch puppet shows, tell stories, etc.
Our themes and schedule for the school year are below:
September 8th
|
Making Connections
|
September
21st
|
Our
Class
|
October
5th
|
Alike
and Different
|
October
19th
|
Groups
We Belong To
|
November 4th
|
Being Together
|
November
16th
|
Being
Kind
|
December 1st
|
Helping
Others
|
December
14th
|
Strong
Listening
|
January
11th
|
Different
Feelings
|
January 26th
|
Recognizing
Feelings
|
February
8th
|
Mean vs.
Strong
|
February
22nd
|
Handling
Anger
|
March 7th
|
Conflicts
and Problem Solving
|
March 28th
|
Win-Win
Solutions
|
April 11th
|
Practicing
Being Strong
|
April 25th
|
Concepts
of Peace
|
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