Dear Families,
This month in Pre-K, we learned about what our feelings look like. We learned about happy, sad, mad, and excited. We spent time thinking about how we would feel in different situations and looked at those feeling faces in mirrors. We built faces with play-doh and played an emotions matching game. We then learned about what we can do when we experience a big emotion, such as feeling mad. We learned that we can stop, name our feeling, and take a deep breath to help us calm down. We practiced taking deep breaths by using a rainbow breathing board and by laying down and placing a stuffed animal on our bellies then watching it go up and down with our breath.
Engage your child by asking:
What are the four feelings you learned about? What do those feelings look like? What makes you feel that way? (Happy, sad, mad, excited)
What are the steps to calming down? (Stop, put hands on tummy, name your feeling βI feelβ¦.β, take deep breaths)
This month in Kindergarten, we learned about our circle of control and that making mistakes is okay. Everyday we face problems. Most of our problems are small and we will decide if the problem is in our control or not. We also learned that everyone makes mistakes and we learn when we make mistakes.
Engage your child by asking:
What are some things you can control? (my words, my choices, how I take care of my feelings)
What are some things that are outside of your control? (school rules, what other people say and do)
What can you say to yourself when you make a mistake?
This month in 1st grade, we learned about our circle of control and size of the problem. We discussed how we are proactive and in charge of only ourselves. We discussed as a class what is in and out of our control, then came up with our own answers. We also learned how to spend our time wisely during work times in the classroom. We learned that working hard, focusing on our work, and ignoring distractions are leader choices that help us do our best learning.
Engage your child by asking:
What are some things in your circle of control? (what I say, what I do, how I feel)
What are some things outside of your circle of control? (friends, family, pets, other peopleβs choices)
How can you spend your time wisely at school? (focusing on work, trying my best)
This month in 2nd grade, we learned about our circle of control and ignoring distractions. We read Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day and talked about whether the problems he faces are inside or outside of his circle of control. Our second lesson focused on ignoring distractions in the classroom. We learned about strategies we can use to ignore distractions as well as self-talk statements that can help.
Engage your child by asking:
What are some things you can control? (my words, my choices, how I take care of my feelings)
What are some things that are outside of your control? (school rules, what other people say and do)
What can help you ignore distractions? (Self-talk, take a deep breath, focus eyes and body on your work)
Sarah Gebhard - gebhards@dansvillecsd.org
Dani Mahany - mahanyd@dansvillecsd.org
