November Social Skills Lesson

Mindfulness

What do you think it means to be mindful?

Your brain is a powerful part of YOU!

Amygdala: Security Guard (Guard Dog)
Helps protect us
Flight, fight, freeze
Hippocampus: Memory Saver
Helps us learn and remember
Chronic stress can shrink it
Prefrontal Cortex (PFC): Wise Owl
Helps us make good decisions
Observes, analyzes and remembers
Thinking, planning, reasoning, impulse control

Has a teacher ever said to you...

• You need to calm down
• Time to focus
• You need to pay attention

Did you know?

You are going to learn the skills of calming down BEFORE you get upset. Mindfulness helps you before you feel sad or mad.

Mindful Listening - Learning to Be Mindful

30 seconds of mindful listening:

• Sit quietly with eyes closed and just listen to

       the sounds around them.  

Just Breathe

by Julie Bayer Salzman & Josh Salzman

Click here to watch "Just Breathe"

Core Practice

Combining Listening and Breathing

using resonant sound.

Step 1:

Raise your hand when

you no longer hear the sound

Step 2: Practice for 30-60 seconds

Where Do You Feel The Breath?

• Put hand on stomach and breath

• Put hand on chest and breath

• Put hand over nose and breath

Practice

• Mindfulness is best practiced “daily.”
• 3 minutes/day is better than 20 minutes/once a week.
• By giving attention to positive experiences, we rewire the brain toward healthy habits of thinking and feeling and away from fight, flight and freeze.

What does Mindfulness mean to you?

October Social Skills Lesson

Spreading Kindness

Kindergarten:

 Each kindergarten class will be reading the story "Have You Filled a Bucket Today?". They will discuss what it means to be kind and what kindness looks like. 

1st and 2nd Grade:

 Each 1st and 2nd grade classroom will be reading the story "What Does it mean to be kind?"

 We will be discussing what it means to be kind and what kindness looks like. Then the students will be designing a flower and writing an act of kindness on their flower. Their flowers will be added to our kindness garden. 

  

3rd, 4th and 5th Grade:

 Each student in 3rd, 4th, and 5th grade will be reading the story "The Invisible Boy".

 After we read and discuss the story with the students, we will be talk about what it means to be kind and how important it is to treat others the way that you want to be treated. 

BEFORE YOU SPEAK

THINK AND BE SMART

IT'S HARD TO FIX

A WRINKLED HEART

 The students will then do an activity where they sketch a picture of themselves inside a heart. We will discuss examples that people may say or do to hurt someone. Each time the students give an example,they will wrinkle their paper a little bit. Once their paper is all wrinkled, we will then talk about acts of kindness. For each example given, the students will try to flatten out their paper. 

 At the end of the lesson, the students will notice that no matter how many acts of kindness are done, the wrinkles remain in their heart. So it is important to think before you speak or act because you don't know what your actions or words will do to someone else. 

Welcome Back!

Dear Memorial Families,

The Guidance Team works collaboratively each year to support all students. This year Jamie Martin will be working with First Grade, Third Grade, and Fifth Grade. Danielle Flaccavento will be working with Kindergarten, Second Grade, and Fourth Grade. Your child will be participating in monthly social curriculum lessons focused on social/emotional learning and character development. These lessons will take place in the classroom and we will cover various topics such as:

• working out problems
• managing feelings at school
• peer pressure and bullying
• student support
• how to make and keep friends
• mindfulness

We are looking forward to partnering with you to support your child’s success throughout the school year.  We can be available to meet with Memorial families to identify helpful community resources. Please feel free to contact us with any questions or concerns.

Sincerely,

The Memorial School Counseling Team

         Jamie Martin, M.Ed. Danielle Flaccavento, M.S., C.A.G.S.

             jmartin@bpsk12.org flaccavento@bpsk12.org

    781 273-7031        781 238-6825

May Social Skills Lesson

May Social Skills Lesson

Teaching about Tolerance and Accepting Difference

This month we will be teaching students about tolerance and accepting differences. Students will be reading a story and watching a video clip on why it is important to be tolerant towards others. We will also be presenting problem solving strategies to use when a child is not feeling accepted.  We will be discussing how each individual is unique in their own way and when put together in their classroom community they are like a box of crayons. 

Giraffes Can't Dance 

by Giles Andreae. 

This story is about a giraffe being different and not being able to dance, but with a little encouragement from his jungle friends, he is able to dance to his own tune. 

Video clip about tolerance:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QS-rJcm7jyQ

Activity:

Students will draw a self portrait on their crayon and have the option to share something that makes them unique. 

April Social Skills Lesoon

April Social Skills Lesson

Self-Esteem

This month we will be discussing self-esteem with each classroom. We will be focusing on topics such as bragging, exclusion, bullying, and teasing and how it can hurt someone's self-esteem. 

Students will be reading the story I Like Myself by: Karen Beaumont. 

After we read and discuss the story, the students will play a game where they will give compliments to each other and receive compliments from their peers. They will be able to feel how good it feels to not only have someone say something nice about them but they will feel how good it feels to say something nice about someone else.

We will discuss the self-esteem remote control and how to use it. 

Students will each create an "I Like Myself" flower. They will pick 5 things that they like about themselves. They will decorate their flower and take it home with them to share with their families. 

3rd, 4th, and 5th graders:

What you BELIEVE can make a DIFFERENCE!

March Social Skills Lesson

March Social Skills Lesson

Introducing Body Language and Tone of Voice

This month, we will be visiting classrooms to teach students about body language and tone of voice. They will be learning how to read people using verbal and nonverbal communication. Students will be learning how thoughts, intentions, or feelings are expressed by physical behaviors, such as facial expression, body posture, gestures, eye movement, touch and the use of space. They will also be talking about how the tone of someone's voice can impact their message delivery. 

Students will be looking at pictures and discussing what emotions are being represented in each picture.

   

    

  

 Students will be role playing using common sayings to hear what their voices may sound like when expressing different emotions and tones.