We had a busy first week of November in Room 107 this week. The kids have been enjoying themselves each day and we have learned many new things. Please take a look at a few snapshots from this week below.
All the photos from the year are on Mr. Hagen’s FLICKR page. Any photo can be downloaded from Mr. Hagen’s Photostream
Friendly Reminder: School starts at 7:25 each day. Arriving late disrupts the learning of others and means that part of the day’s reading lesson is missed. Thank you for your help with this.
This week, Ms. Kersey, our counsellor came and talked to the class about anger. Here is a message from her:
Dear parents,
We have been working on calming down strong feelings , specifically anger, with our First Graders during this week’s guidance lesson. Last month, the children learned about empathy and how to identify feelings in others by looking at three clues, facial expression, body language, and the situation around the person.
This month, the children learned that we identify our feelings by physical clues in your body. All our feelings are natural, and feelings vary in strength.Feelings that are strong need to be managed. When we feel angry, our bodies change and our brains “turn off.” It’s hard to think and make good decisions when we are angry because our body is reacting. We breathe faster, our hard beats quicker, our muscles tense up, etc.
Feeling angry is natural. Being mean, or hurting others when you are angry is not okay. The children learned “The Anger Rule” which is: It is okay to be angry, but it’s not okay to hurt others, destroy things, or hurt yourself when you are angry.
After discussing anger and how it is an important, normal feeling, the children discussed how to calm down. We watched a video about Belly Breathing and we read a book, “The Astonishing Secret of Awesome Man.” Awesome Man is a super hero who gets angry, just like boys and girls do, and gives some ideas for calming down, such as going to a quiet place, giving himself a “power grip” (big body hug), and having a healthy snack. We practiced other strategies, such as counting, thinking calm/happy thoughts.
The children connected that they can use these calming down strategies when they “WAIT AND COOL OFF” in Kelso’s Choices! The children’s work from their lesson with Ms. Kate will be coming home—please discuss what they learned with them!
Kind regards,
Kate
