The kids were able to sing a song at the end of the lesson and take a little quiz about what they remembered from the story. We then followed this up with a demonstration using a bottle of water with a little soap in it and some glitter. I showed the bottle when it was "calm" and the glitter was all settled at the bottom and compared this to our brains when we feel calm and everything is okay. Then, I shook it up and all the glitter was swirling around and all over the place in the bottle. We compared this to our brains when we are angry and talked about how sometimes our minds aren't very clear when we are angry, so we can make bad choices. We have to wait for our minds to calm down before we try to handle the situation that made us angry. We need to let the "glitter" settle back down. We watched a couple of videos that showed us how we can take deep breaths and were able to try it out. Deep breathing helps people calm down and lets us have some time to let that "glitter settle". The following is one of the videos I showed them. I also showed this to the 3rd-5th grade students recently to help with anxiety. Breathing can help with many emotional issues we may be having.
The other, interactive video we did to practice breathing was "Swirling" from GoNoodle. You can sign up for a free account to view it here if you would like. It will give you access to all the other interactive GoNoodle videos your kids can do at home.
https://app.gonoodle.com/channels/flow/swirling?source=search
After we watched the video clips and practiced deep breathing, the students drew pictures of what they feel in their bodies when they are angry. If you can have a child practice identifying the feelings they physically have when they are angry, you will have a good chance that they can catch this early on and calm themselves down. Aside from breathing, we also talked about counting fingers and toes, playing outside to release that energy (when they are able), letting out a scream (if outside) to get the anger out (we talked about being sure the scream was not directed toward anyone, but facing away from people and for themselves), punching a pillow, doing an activity they find soothing (reading, coloring, listening to music), squeezing something like a stress ball, etc. Here are the pictures that some of the kids identified as the physical effects of anger in their bodies:
This weekend, Student Council held their fundraiser at Barnes and Noble for "A Spring of Hope," which is an organization that helps to build water wells for schools and communities in South Africa. Many children and adults do not have clean drinking water and have to travel miles to receive even the dirty water. "A Spring of Hope" helps to build water wells, among many other things, so students don't have to worry about getting sick from the water they are drinking. If you would still like to help Student Council with raising money for this excellent cause, we are still taking cash/check donations (checks made out to Oak Hill Rotary Club). You can also still makes purchases online at www.bn.com/bookfairs and make a purchase this week (through Friday April 8). Enter voucher # 11829652 at the end of your purchase in order for us to receive 10% of the purchase.
Thanks and happy Carnival tomorrow if you are able to make it out!! :-)
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