Snapshot for the Week: Health Ed

10/7 First Graders and Kindergartners sat in social distance outside on our lunch spots while Nicole and Cassidy helped me teach them about expectations for school, home, meal times, play times, and bus times. This was a responsive lesson to some challenges with K/1 about where different topics of conversation should reside or would be expected and where maybe some of the more challenging topics would be unexpected or uninvited to show up. We used an interactive board to think about examples like where “planning our recess game” might be an oaky time and place. Students responded by saying “at recess, during lunch, on the bus” would be expected and okay places to talk about such a thing- not in the middle of a teacher’s instructions, during moments of silence etc. There was also a parking spot for those tricky times when we don’t know if this would be an appropriate topic or theme in any of the place choices so we parked them at the “stop light” to think about and consider just leaving them there and not needing to discuss them with others (potty talk was one example that parked there)

10/8 Second Graders and I met on Mountain Climb Day after they completed the Everest challenge. We talked about perseverance and persistence and how those two things were essential for days like today. They defined both and gave examples from the day. I asked them to think about other times they showed they could do difficult things and choose to not give up. We made a “wordle” of all the things they shared and we closed with a short celebration of our hard work together.

10/4 -Third Graders worked this week to hear a book read aloud called “Desmond and the very mean word” by Desmond Tutu, in our lesson objective Understanding the power our words have. The book’s message was about how we can forgive someone who has not apologized and we free ourselves from the pain that is caused when we take the step to forgive. Themes that we discussed from the book were forgiveness, respect and empathy. Students were asked to respond to the story in the following questions:

"How do we handle social pressures and unkindness?"

What happened in the story?

How does Father Trevor explain forgiveness?

How did Desmond forgive?

How do Desmond and the red-haired boy end up showing each other forgiveness and respect? How can people show compassion and respect for one another?

10/4 Fifth Graders had a conversation about NH Kid Governor, we discussed how hard they have worked as a class on their campaigns, their speeches and their goals. Conversation was aided by Cate, discussing how we are going to handle disappointment since there is one chosen candidate at our school level and then ultimately one Governor. Students asked great questions, discussed supporting one another and how to express and process personal disappointment in appropriate ways.

The second half of class was spent discussing the concepts of connecting and disconnecting statements in conflict situations. We discussed how phrasing your feelings and your needs in certain ways can be connecting (productive and relationship building) or disconnecting (offensive, upsetting and conflict fueling). Students say examples and then gave examples of their own voluntarily.

10/8 Sixth Graders didn’t have a specific class dedicated to health ed this week because of mountain climb day. I did however get to Everest with the group and spend the afternoon with them and their enthusiasm was infectious. They did an amazing job with supporting each other through the climbs up the hill towards our goals. We had a chance to talk about what it feels like to stay positive and to encourage others by putting competitiveness aside and working towards a common goal.

10/7 Seventh Graders continued working our way through the book “A good kind of trouble” discussing themes of race, racial injustice, tolerance and inclusion. They also had their first Google Classroom assignment, an article reading with close reading discussion questions related to a Black Lives Matter march organized by young adolescent women (15 and 16 year olds) who organized 10,000 people to march peacefully for change, to shed light on the racism and social justice.

10/7 Eighth Graders continued listening and following along to the read aloud of “The Hate U Give”. They are actively taking note, answering questions and asking questions as we work to digest the emotion and content of the book. We engaged in listening to the book through Audible.com this week to hear the story from a different voice. Students have their first Google Classroom assignment for some close reading discussion questions for next week related to the chapters we’ve read so far.