Parenting in the Digital Age

On Friday, October 11, the counselors and the tech team co-hosted a Coffee Chat on parenting in the digital age. There was a very successful turn out and great discussions were held. If you missed the coffee chat, you can download our resources here on our blog under the Coffee Chat tab.

Zones of Regulation- what zone are you in?

Children need to be taught explicitly how to regulate their actions when they experience strong emotions. When they can do this, it leads to increased self regulation control and problem solving abilities. Children can learn to recognize their emotions when they pay attention to the responses they are having in the mind, heart and body. In our lessons the students have been exploring how our thoughts create emotions and are learning ways to manage their emotions through self-regulation strategies (taking a walk, getting a drink of water, taking a mindful breath. The Zones of Regulation chart can be very useful to students to help them to recognize when they may no longer be in the green zone. Children still need our help in modelling and demonstrating who to deal with emotions that happen throughout the day. 

Introduction to Self-Regulation

Self-regulation is the ability to monitor and control our bodies, emotions, and thoughts, and changing them as needed. There are many strong or difficult emotions that need  need regulating. Children can experience a range of  reactions  with difficult emotions (i.e. sweat, heart races, yell, stomp, cry) Many students identified feelings of frustration, anger, sadness and sometimes all of those mixed together.
To get us thinking about how to regulate our behaviours, we played the game, Red Light, Green Light. Students made connections that cars must regulate their driving to be aware of what is happening around them (just like our feelings!)

Kindness Matters

As we returned back last month from our mid-year break, we started our lessons off with thinking about kindness. Kindness is about noticing what we see in the world around us in responding in ways with both verbal and non-verbal gestures.

Students explored the value in understanding that Kindness really does start with ourselves! Noticing things about our own self that are worth celebrating and sharing with others. We also unpacked what kindness looks like and sounds like.

Learning to REFUSE

A very important skill for children to learn from any early age is to learn ways to REFUSE unsafe or unwanted touches. Over the last few weeks we have learned to RECOGNIZE situations where we may feel unsafe. We have noticed that when there are times when we feel unsafe our bodies may give us a clue (heart beats faster, our body may feel shaky, breathing faster). This is our brains way of letting us know that something may appear unsafe. The children learned ways to REFUSE situations that are unsafe. Refuse words might include: Stop it! Don't touch me! Stop it that hurts! We practiced this through role play keeping in mind how to hold our body tall and to speak firmly.

Personal Space: Connecting to personal Safety

Over the past two weeks, we have been reviewing the concept that everybody has a personal space bubble. Your personal space bubble is the amount of space left between you and another person when you are interacting together. We should be able to notice how someone feels if we are too close inside their personal bubble by reading the clues on their face and their body. Here are some of the key concepts we learned:

Students are also learning that if anyone enters into your personal space bubble without asking and it made you feel uncomfortable or if they hurt you, that this needs to be reported to an adult right away. 

Here is a also a song we are learning about personal space:

Safe, Unsafe and Unwanted Touches

This week we have unpacked the difference between safe, unsafe and unwanted touches.
Safe touches are touches that make you feel cared for and loved.

Unsafe touches make you feel hurt, uncomfortable and scared.

Unwanted touches are touches we don't like even if they don't hurt our bodies. Theses touches can also make us feel uncomfortable. 

Coffee Chat: Child Protection and Keeping our Children Safe

Photos from our most recent coffee chat on Child Protection and Keeping our Children Safe!
HERE  are the resources.

3Rs Song

Ways to Stay Safe Song

Prep Senior - Grade 2 Child Protection Lessons

Learning ways to stay safe is an important skill for children.  This week we have been investigating pictures and situations that may be safe or unsafe. Children are learning about the 3Rs when it comes to Safety:

1. RECOGNIZE: Children are taught to think: Is it safe? What's the rule? Is there a rule being broken?

2. REFUSE: If you know something is not safe and someone is asking you to do something unsafe, we say words that mean, NO!

3. REPORT: Tell an adult right away if you feel unsafe! 

Have a look at this photo together and think about the 3Rs above:

Both at school and at home we have adults that will keep us safe. If children are unsure if something is safe they should follow the, "Always Ask First Rule" (this rule means to also ask the adult in charge you are with if they think something is unsafe.  Adults have a very important job, and that is to keep kids safe at all times!

Lazy 8 Breath

Another great strategy for children to be able to pay attention to their breath or to help regulate their own behaviour when they are feeling upset, worried or even over excited.

Prep Senior Learns about Personal Space

What is Personal Space?

Personal space is the amount of space people need to have between themselves so that they feel comfortable.Everybody wants to feel comfortable. When people feel comfortable with the amount of space between you and them, that is known as good personal space. With respect to personal space students are taught to think about:

• How well you know the other person
• What is happening at the moment
• Does the other person seem comfortable?

Children are encouraged to envision an invisible hula-hoop as an imaginary bubble of space around them and that no one should enter into your personal space unless you have given them permission and if you ever do feel uncomfortable with someone in your personal space you should talk to an adult your trust right away. The amount of space needed to feel comfortable can change from person to person and from activity to activity. Good personal space changes depending on who you are, who you are with, and what you are doing. 

More Mindful Breathing Strategies

At the beginning of each of our lessons, we spend the first few minutes focused on the ABCs of mindfulness. The "A" represents our ability to focus our attention and be aware, the "B" represents breathing (focusing on the rhythm, counting our breaths) and finally the "C" caring for ourselves and others. Throughout the year, we will share these strategies through this blog.

Problem Solving Reflections in Grade 1 and Grade 2

Students in Grades 1 and 2 have been reflecting on their problem solving ability this week during our lessons. Your child would have either posted to their see saw or brought home a paper with a reflection of their learning and understanding of the concepts we have learned. Here are a few photos from their reflections:

Photos from Problem Solving in Grade 1 and Grade 2!

Here are some photos from our lessons this week in Grade 1 and Grade 2!

Size of Problems and Matching Reactions to the size of the problem

Grades 1 and 2 have been working on identifying the size of the problem, and matching their reaction accordingly. You can see in the chart below how children are learning to understand how to match the size of their reaction to the size of the problem. This takes a LOT of practice, as most children feel that small problems are really big! Through role play and discussions we will continue to work on this skill!

Try a few of these examples together!!!!

4-7-8 Breathing to help Focus

Children need lots of different strategies to help regulate their behaviour when they are feeling overwhelmed or have strong feelings about something that might of just happened. Giving children strategies of how to pay attention to the breath can help them to regulate their behaviour when they may be experiencing strong feelings. Try this simple strategy above together, called, 4-7-8
It also is a wonderful strategy to use at night if children's minds begin to wonder and think about the day or what might happen the next day. Happy breathing!

What do problem solvers SAY and DO in Prep Senior?

In PS this week, we have been learning that problems SAY and DO certain things while they are problem solving:
Problem Solvers:
Say: There words in a calm way! They also say their words firmly and assertively!
DO: look at the speaker and they take a deep breath before they try to problem solve if they are really upset!
Listeners:
Say: Okay! I understand you! They also might say, I am sorry BECAUSE (and name the reason why they are sorry rather than just staying sorry!
DO: They LOOK at the problem solver

In Action: Using I-Messages

Here are a few photos of role plays we did this week using an I-Message.

Using an I-Message in Problem Solving

Using an I-Message is a helpful way for children to express their feelings when problems solving. The first step in our STEP problems solving model teaches children to express how they are feeling without blaming. There are 3 magical steps to an I-Message:
1. Say how you feel
2. Say the problem
3. Say what you would like
We have had fun role-playing using the I-message with our friends during our lessons!