Happy Thanksgiving!
Here we are at Thanksgiving break already! I hope that you have a wonderful and safe holiday!
The students have continued to work hard on social-emotional learning. Kindergarten and 1st grade have continued learning all about emotions and managing emotions with "The Little Spot" books and lessons by Diane Alber. Grades 3-5 finished up learning about Distress Tolerance and how to calm to a point of thinking clearly and being able to use their "wise minds." Now grades 3-5 have begun learning all about emotions as well!
Our BIG focus is that emotions are messengers trying to communicate to us, AND, no emotion is "bad." All emotions are valuable, it is how we deal with those emotions that can have positive or negative outcomes. We are better able to cope with emotions when we can put a name to it/express it.
With the Thanksgiving season upon us, I wanted to bring attention to gratitude. Research on gratitude consistently shows that it can have a huge and lasting impact on our brain, mental health, outlook on life and life satisfaction (see more here). I urge you to be intentional with gratitude and openly speak with your children about what you are grateful for. Make routines and habits surrounding gratitude whether that be first thing in the morning, meal time, bed time, etc. So often, we think grateful thoughts but we can forget to put words to it. You can find more ideas to instill gratitude in children here
I know that I am sure grateful for all of you and the opportunity that I have to work with these amazing children.
