Channeling Boys Feelings Effectively

I have had the pleasure of seeing Rosalind Wiseman present 3 times.  She is an internationally recognized expert on girl bullying, but has spent the last several years explaining the "Boy World" to audiences.  You can watch her basic talk on You Tube about helping boys based on her research for Masterminds & Wingmen Wiseman on helping boys cope The part of her talks and book I find most useful is the SEAL structure to put words to feelings and develop a strategy to approach another person.  SEAL stands for 

1. STOP and SET it UP

2 EXPLAIN

3 AFFIRM and ACKNOWLEDGE

4 LOCK in 

I think teaching the SEAL process of upper elementary and middle school boys is very valuable.  I encourage you to read this book. I have recommended it to many parents (especially mothers) to give them insight into their sons.

Study Skills Group Tips

My study skills groups for grades 3 and 4 meet during lunch so I have to maximize our time.  We have met once a week for the entire second quarter and will continue through the end of the third quarter.  Many of the students in these groups are in our gap group.  To engage them immediately I frequently do an opening activity where they each get one or two items that serve as a prompt.  Sometimes we sort them (helpful not helpful) and sometimes they read it aloud to the group and explain.  This past week I gave them each 2 foam flowers with strategies or concepts we have already discussed for a review.  They like getting something tangible to hold (not just a piece of paper) and I am always looking for them to say how they can apply what we learned.  They had to say why the one they had was important for school success. I then have the entire list with explanation typed out and copied in advance for them to add to their folders that go home at the end of each quarter to let parents/guardians know what we covered. The foam works well because you can wipe it off if they get food on one.

Make a Kindness Quilt

The Kindness Quilt by Wallace is a great book for kindergarten through grade 2.  It does a great job of explaining simple acts of kindness.  After reading and discussing in my small group, I had each student make their own kindness picture and label it, like the children do in the book.  The teacher then displays this on a paper quilt that starts small and grows.  I have mine hanging in my office.  I try to avoid hanging work students do in counseling in the hallway.  I display student work done in classroom lessons in the hallway.  One teacher read the book and assigned doing the drawing for "homework" just like the teacher in the book. Here is a link to a plan https://character.org/lessons/lesson-plans

Kindness is Cool

This book is perfect for a kindergarten or first grade lesson on kindness.  An easy response to the book and discussion is to give each student a pre-cut heart (hopefully done with a die cut) where in kindergarten they would write and draw one act of kindness and in first could do up to 5.  If you do the 5s its easy to count by 5s to show how many acts of kindness that would make. It could be tied in to 100th day of school (which is today here) or the hearts could be displayed on a "Kindness Tree" bulletin board.

Kindness Book

This book is great to share with Pre-K through Grade 1 to encourage them to show kindness and express gratitude.  Today is Crossing Guards Day in our school division so the kids can thank the guard who helps keep the safe. I also encourage our students to learn the names of people like lunch room staff and bus drivers.  Greeting folks by name spreads kindness too.

Wear the Cape for All Kid Kind

Another great site for resources to teach kindness is wearthecapekids.com/kidkind-foundation/ I used this with our fourth grade lessons but it would work PreK-grade 3 as well. 

Kindness Posters

In addition to the lesson plans on the RAK Foundation website they have many other great resources.  My favorite are the 8 x 11 inch posters randomactsofkindness.org/calendars-and-graphics#posters Our print shop printed and lamintated them for me. The great news is all the resources are free.