In order to make this an event that everyone can participate in safely, it would be greatly appreciated if parents could avoid sending their children to school with peanut butter products for lunch on Tuesday the 30th. Thank you in advance for helping to make this a successful event.
Students in grades 2-5 at the South School will join more than 2 million others across the country to cross social boundaries on Tuesday, Oct. 30, 2012 as part of the 11th annual Mix It Up at Lunch Day, an event designed to foster respect and understanding in schools. Mix It Up encourages students to sit with someone new in the cafeteria for just one day. More than 5,000 schools are expected to participate in this year’s Mix It Up at Lunch Day, which is sponsored by the Southern Poverty Law Center’s Teaching Tolerance project.
In order to make this an event that everyone can participate in safely, it would be greatly appreciated if parents could avoid sending their children to school with peanut butter products for lunch on Tuesday the 30th. Thank you in advance for helping to make this a successful event.
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This week I have been working with many of my students on increasing their understanding and level of comfort with a variety of coping skills. I created a Cup O' Coping Skills which contains a variety of different strategies to calm down and relax. I plan to have students pick from this cup every other week so they become experts at learning how to self-soothe. Strategies selected this week included deep breathing, squeezing play-dough, elephant hands (a muscle relaxation exercise), exercise, meditation, and visualization exercises. Last week I started Second Step lessons with our students in Kindergarten, 4th and 5th Grade. For those of you new to the South School, Second Step is the research based program the Stoughton Public Schools use to help children to acquire and master social and academic skills. Teaching Second Step is one of my favorite ways to connect with all of our students. In Kindergarten lessons, students are introduced to 3 puppets, Playful Puppy, Slowdown Snail and Be Calm Bunny. The students usually get a kick out of interacting with these puppets. Last week I introduced them to Playful Puppy and we worked on listening skills. Today I will reinforce what we learned last week and talk with them more about focusing skills.
In 4th and 5th grade students watch videos of students dealing with school problems and work together to identify ways that the students in the videos can deal with these problems in an effective way. We also do many role plays during our lessons and the students typically love the role plays. It's fun to see all of the different personalities emerge during the role plays. Last week we worked on understanding empathy, as well as improving our listening skills through some engaging activities. To learn more about what your child is learning in Second Step, I encourage you to visit the website: www.secondstep.org and register with the activation codes found below. This will provide you with access to home links that coincide with lessons as well as videos and testimonials about the program. Kindergarten code: SSPK FAMI LY70 4th grade code: SSP4 FAMI LY74 5th grade code: SSP5 FAMI LY75 I hope to add pictures soon of what goes on during lessons. Mrs. Shute So, this is my first attempt at blogging. I was encouraged by a South School parent (thanks Mrs. Jolley) to add a blog to my website. My hope is to update it weekly to keep parents informed about what is going on with Second Step and other important activities at the South. I also hope to share information about different strategies that I am trying.
Overall, it's been a succesful first week at the South. Our kindergarten students started today and things seem to be running smoothly. Normal jitters and a few tears, but those didn't seem to last long. I'm guessing many of our students have been pretty tired when they go home after school. I know that it always takes me a few weeks to settle back into the school routine. Just a reminder to take this into consideration when your kids seem to be reverting to old behaviors. I know my boys have been showing the signs of the new changes with extra whininess and less patience. That's when I remind myself to use my 2nd step skills of belly breathing and counting ( I may also be a little less patient and cranky!) On another note, we are welcoming 13 new students to the South this year and I am looking forward to getting to know them during lunch on Monday. |
AuthorAs I wrote on my home page, I have been a Counselor at the South School for over 10 years. I am constantly trying to improve my skills as a Counselor and to learn new strategies that I can pass along to my students. Archives
May 2015
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