This week the Super Kids started to learn about the zones of regulation using the characters from the movie Inside Out. Having a common language and understanding our emotions was the goal when discussing this topic. We started by reading the book “In My Heart”. This is a wonderful book that explores feelings and how our heart has many emotions. This lead into introducing the zones of regulation and talking about what makes us feel these feelings.
Throughout the week we used this language to talk through recess issues, to understand our friends point of view, and to describe our feelings. I heard one student come in from recess and say, “My bucket was tipped and I’m so frustrated!” Another student said, “You’re in the yellow zone! Take a deep breath. I’m your friend.” Ok…I had to smile! I shared the following movie trailers from the movie with the class to help explain the zones. They made a rather heavy topic more relatable and fun.
Have you heard of the book “Giraffes Can’t Dance” by Giles Andres? After reading the book together we had to turn it into an art lesson and create our own giraffes dancing. I’ve attached a link to the book so you can enjoy it as much as we did.
The art lesson took a couple of days, but with some patience and time, the class created they’re very own dancing giraffes.
This week we practiced our developing math skills though some fun math games. The Super Kids practiced recognizing and adding ten frames as well as tallies through a bingo game. There are different levels to each game, so everyone was challenged. Students can play anyone no matter what level of game they’re on, because each student had their own board! This has quickly become a class favourite and we can’t wait to share it with our families next week during conferences.
Friday afternoon turned into a crazy time! One of the Super Kids favourite things to do at recess is to slide down the hills on our playground. Since the snow has come, they just can’t get enough sliding time! I challenged the Super Kids to design and create a sled ramp that would push their “sled” the furthest. Challenge accepted! My students are engineers! You would think that some kids might be overwhelmed by this activity…not my class. They quickly formed groups and started designing, creating, testing, and modifying. It turned into a huge afternoon project. I couldn’t stop laughing, smiling, and cheering for my amazing kids!
As you can see from their designs, our lessons on incline planes, friction, and how things move all were needed to create these projects. We even stopped in the middle of building, ran to the hallway, took off our shoes, and slide across the floor in our socks. Then we tried it in our shoes. We had a mini lesson on friction right then to remind them about the materials they were using and how it could effect the motion of their sleds. FYI, I slide farther then the kids in my socks. 🙂 Check out the following links to see some of the kids testing their designs.
We’re excited to share our learning with our families next week at conferences. Have a nice weekend.
