Unbelievable Tradegy

Where do I even start to process what happened on Friday, December 14th in Connecticut?  As a parent of an elementary age student and an elementary school employee it doubly impacted me.  As school staff we love your kids SO much and I can't imagine not seeing their smiling faces each morning as I greet them at the door.  My heart aches for those parents, school staff and community.  We have a had a really great day with no mention of the tragedy at school.  However, I wanted to make sure that you had some resources if you do choose to talk to your child about what happened or if they ask you questions.  It is so hard to explain WHY someone would do this, but here are some helpful resources to help you talk to your child.

School Social Work Association
http://sswaa.org/displaycommon.cfm?an=1&subarticlenbr=500

Fayette County Helping Kids
http://www.fcps.net/media/653838/nasp.pdf

Talking with Kids about Tradegy
http://www.fcps.net/media/653842/samhsa.pdf

If you or child need anything please feel free to call me at 381-3402 or email me at dana.moses@fayette.kyschools.us

Second Steps Lessons

I have been introducing the Second Steps curriculum to all grades over the last week or so.  Those that have been at Garden Springs know this as (the cards) that I bring in and we do role plays with.  Second Steps is a research based Violence Prevention Curriculum that teaches kids about empathy, conflict resolution and anger management.  Right now we are focusing on empathy.

K:  In K, your kids are being introduced to Impulsive Puppy (my dog puppet, they love him!) and they will be meeting Slow Down Snail and Be Calm Bunny (also puppets).  We are talking about how important it is to be a good listener, as it shows others that you respect and care about them.  We will also be talking A LOT about feelings.  How to identify how someone is feeling by looking at them and how to show you care about them.  They will have an opportunity to role play feelings.
We will be reading the following book:

1st:  In 1st grade, we will be working on how to identify other people's feelings through facial expressions, body language and what is going on in a situation.  They will have the opportunity to role play different feelings and share experiences that have made them have the different feelings that we are discussing.  We will be reading the following book:

 

 

2nd:  In second grade we will also be working on identifying other people's feelings but will focus more on why its important to identify how others feel.  We will discuss how people have similiar and different feelings about various things.  Just because your best friend doesn't agree with everything you like or dislike doesn't mean that you cannot be friends.   We will also talk about how feelings change over time due to your experiences and maturity.  They will watch a Second Steps DVD about a lost boy which we will help talk about how his feelings changed throughout the video.

 

 

3rd:  In third grade, we will continue to talk about feelings but focus on perspective  and how others can see a particular situation very differently.  We will also talk about active listening and how important it is to show people you are engaged and listening because it shows respect and concern for others.  The kids do an active listening activity where they have various partners throughout the class and have a specific topic to discuss.  At the end we talk about what it felt like to be listened to or what it felt like if you had a bad experience.  We also practiced how to express concern for others through role plays.

 

4th:  In fourth grade, we will continue to talk about feelings but focus on preferences and conflicting feelings.  We do a really fun activity where the kids have to choose between 4 choices of things and they have to pick what they prefer the most.  For example:  If you could do any of the following activities which would you want to do the MOST; skydiving, go on a hot air balloon ride, scuba diving, or rock climbing.  They might not like any of the choices or they may like them all, but what do they PREFER the most of the choices. I love learning about their different personalities during this activity.  We also talk about specific feelings and how important it is to use clues such as facial expressions, body language and situational clues to figure out what might be going on with someone else.  The students get to do non-verbal and verbal role plays about feelings.  They LOVE role plays!

 

5th:  In fifth grade, we continue talking about feelings, perspective, and communicating concern.  The students did non-verbal role plays to show different feelings using their facial expressions and body language, the class then tried to guess the feeling.  We did role plays to practice how to show concern for others and we have been working on cause and effect with feelings.  How everything we do (positive or negative) affects others.  I really enjoyed listening to the classes come up with their own causes and effects for major issues.

 

We will be working on the first part of Second Steps, EMPATHY for about 2 months, then cover some other topics and then come back to it.