It seems as though we were just inducting our Student Council members, and here we are already at the end, rewarding them for all the hard work they have done this year! On Friday of last week, we were able to do one more volunteer project for our community by visiting the Austin Diaper Bank and helping to package diapers for low-income families who cannot afford them for their babies. The kids were admittedly unsure of what it would be like when I mentioned we were going to a Diaper Bank; and I may have joked with them and said we would be changing babies diapers ;-)...BUT they LOVED it!!! They had so much fun getting to wrap the diapers up and some kids got to even take inventory while they were there. A few of our members decorated boxes that would be packaged and sent to organizations who help low-income families with painted hand prints and some worked on a "thank you" poster for a church that donated diapers to the Austin Diaper Bank. The majority of our members worked on the wrapping and counting of the diapers, which all of the kids said was a lot of fun! They were so quick, efficient, and really got into it, that we finished pretty quickly, so the coordinator had to find more for us to do! She was quite pleased with our group and was surprised at how quickly and well they worked. Here are some action shots from all our hard work!
After all their hard work at the Austin Diaper Bank, they were rewarded by going to Gatti Town to have a pizza celebration and play some arcade games! We also held our last Student Council meeting of the year with the Oak Hill Rotary Club while we were there and the Oak Hill Rotary Club provided them with certificates (for everyone) and plaques (for the officers)! We owe a big thank you to the Oak Hill Rotary Club, and specifically Tom Cripps, for all their help this year with our Student Council! They paid for our celebration at Gatti Town, helped us organize many of our events, helped pay a portion of our t-shirt costs, and have made donations to many of our service projects this year! I also want to give a big thank you to the parent volunteers who have helped this year! Our Vice President, Brini's, mom, Missy Bourque, has helped volunteer at every single one of our events in some capacity, even while having a full-time job, and because of this was named our Austin Partners in Education Volunteer of the Year. Also, accompanying us on this field trip was Lisa Moe and Marisa Fernandez, who we we were so thankful to have along to help us!! We have had many other parents involved throughout the year, and it is too hard to name you all, but know we appreciate you and everything you have done!! Here are some pictures from our celebration!
Thanks to everyone who has supported Student Council and our service projects in any way, shape, or form!! We couldn't have had a successful year without the help and involvement of our whole school! :-)
The month of April flew by and I can't believe it's already May!! While it has been a busy time and the kids start getting a little more wound up, I have thoroughly enjoyed myself the last two weeks in all of the PK-5th grade classes! We have had a very fun lesson on self-control and I was able to put the kids to the test. In grades PK-2nd, I started out by giving every child one Smartie (not one roll, but just one single Smartie). I then gave them a very hard choice to make. I told them that they could either eat the Smartie now, or they could wait until the very end of the lesson and they would get something even better. They couldn't even suck on it, which many tried to do. No putting it in their mouth at all. Very hard and tempting for the little ones to do, so I was definitely entertained as I watched them with their Smarties! ;-)
While they held on to their Smarties, I showed the PK-2 grade students this video, "Benny and the Birthday Berries":
After the video was finished, I checked in to see who still had their Smarties and told them to hold on to them a bit longer. We talked about self-control and what we have to control at school and home. We talked about what happened with Benny and the other characters in the songs; and what they had trouble controlling. Then we watched this video:
After the video, we talked about why having self-control is good, etc. Then, I did a final check to see who still had their entire Smartie. Those who did received a whole roll of Smarties and those who didn't, did not receive one. If I could tell they had sucked on it and had a disintegrated Smartie, they didn't get a roll.
If we had extra time, I then blew bubbles over all the kids, without giving them any directions other than not to hit each other and be careful with their hands. They of course all wanted to pop them and did. When they were done I asked what they all had the urge to do as soon as I started to blow them, and they answered "pop them." Then, I blew them a second time over the whole group, but this time told them to show me they had self-control and not to move or pop them. All but about one or two kids in each class was able to sit there and just let the bubbles fall. They got a good laugh out of letting the bubbles fall on their heads and not being able to touch them.
For grades 3-5 we did the exact same thing with the Smarties, but watched these two video clips instead of the previous ones and discussed the videos and self-control. They were also able to give me many examples of things that they need to have self-control over.
Practice teaching self-control with your kids at home early on to help them be able to do it on their own with much more ease when they are older! I know I struggle with just eating a few chips and before I know it, the whole bag is gone! ;-) Just so you know how this experiment turned out, I would say that in the majority of the classes, the kids were able to practice self-control and not eat the Smartie. On average, only about 1-3 kids ate the Smartie in each class. :-) Good luck to those students (and parents) who will be taking the STAAR test next week!! I made a quick reference to the test next week and needing to practice good self-control with that, too, in the 3rd-5th grade classes. I told them to take lots of deep breaths and just do their best!! Good luck everyone and see my previous blog with tips about test anxiety and how to help them prepare if you need some pointers! :-)
Another busy couple of weeks have flown by! I can't believe it is already April! This week I have been in kinder- 2nd grade classrooms. I will finish up with a couple of them and PK next week. We have been working on anger management. We all get angry sometimes (yes, even adults ;-), which is okay, but we need to know how to control it. We talked about inappropriate ways to handle anger: yelling and screaming, hitting, kicking, throwing things, throwing a "tantrum", or keeping it all bottled up inside, even. It's easy to want to do those things because we react so quickly at times when we are angry, but we really need to work on calming down, so we can have a positive outcome. Usually those ways of dealing with anger, lead us to a negative consequence, which nobody likes. We started off by watching, "Howard B. Wigglebottom Learns It's Okay to Back Away".
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.
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!! :-)
If you are a 3rd, 4th, or 5th grade parent, I am sure you know that STAAR testing is coming up soon!! This is a time where many of our students start to get nervous and anxious. Many develop test anxiety, so I wanted to make sure all of our students have the skills to cope with and diminish anxiety, especially when it comes to tests. I visited all 3rd-5th grade classrooms and we read the story, Tyler Tames the Testing Tiger, which is about a boy who becomes very nervous before a test. He shows all the signs of anxiety: butterflies in his stomach, sweaty palms, a heart that is beating super fast, his mind is going blank, and he feels extremely nervous. In this story he learns how to calm himself down, prepare himself, think positively, and remembers it's just a test and he is prepared and will do great.
Your children should be coming home with a packet that includes many tips for being prepared for the test and learning how to calm down. The packet also includes ways you can help as a parent, so they feel relaxed and confident.
We talked A LOT about positive thinking and believing and verbalizing that they CAN and WILL do well on the test and to think of it as getting to show how much they know and have learned, instead of all the negative thoughts that come to mind. We talked about how you can turn almost any negative into a positive if you try. Also, being well prepared will greatly reduce any anxiety or stress. If you are prepared for something, you generally feel a lot better about it and have positive feelings.
You can help as parents, too, by being sure they get to bed early the night before the test, so they are well rested and feeling good in the morning. Also, making sure they have a nutritious breakfast in the morning will really help! Exercise is also very good for improving brain stimulation, it releases endorphins for those feel-good feelings, decreases stress, and helps keep your kids healthy. You can also help by encouraging them to just do their best and helping them to understand that if they miss some questions, it will be okay, and they can just try better next time. A whole lot of pressure is not necessary and won't help them. Try to keep everything very positive.
I will be in their classrooms again on Monday to go over a couple of short breathing activities that help to calm down an anxious body. This is good for any situation that causes stress, not just test taking. Here is a video that is helpful in remembering to "Just Breathe," whether we are mad, frustrated, anxious, or stressed out:
Have a great three-day weekend and Easter, if you celebrate it!! :-)
