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Rock Valley Elementary School Counseling
As a reminder, Tuesday's theme is "It's no sweat to show good character!" Please wear your favorite pair of sweat pants and your "Faith over Fear" shirt for Ms. Trei!Rock Valley Elementary School Counseling
Mr. Vander Maten's class shares..."It's time for us to do something!" after being inspired by Matthew West and the lyrics to his song, "Do Something".
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In celebration of Character Counts! and Red Ribbon week, students in Mr. Vander Maten's Class discussed citizenship today. Citizenship is one of the six pillars of character. Students defined citizenship as...helping to sandbag when there is flooding, carrying a neighbor's groceries in for them, choosing not to throw trash out the window, giving money to homeless people, taking part in community events such as the recent glow run in the community, as well as participating in the food/hygiene drive that we are currently doing at school this week.
Students were asked to watch a music video for "Do Something" by Matthew West and then to think about how this connected to citizenship. Many shared keywords that stuck out to them!
I explained to students that it was time for us to "Do Something". They were split up into small groups and then spent the rest of our class time together outside picking up trash around our school building! Please enjoy these pictures of our kids serving our school today!
Matthew West Song Lyrics:
www.youtube.com/watch?v=b_RjndG0IX8
First Grade Students discussed qualities of a good friend last week. We started our time together with a group discussion on enemies! We defined what an enemy is and even took a poll to see how many students had enemies!
Next, we read the story "Enemy Pie". This story is about a boy who identifies that the new kid in town, Jeremy Ross, is his enemy because Jeremy didn't invite him to his trampoline party and he also laughed at the boy when Jeremy struck him out during a baseball game. He goes to his dad for some help. Dad decides that he will make "enemy pie" but won't give the boy the recipe. After his dad bakes the pie, the boy discovers that the pie looks and smells just like a normal pie and is very confused. His dad tells him that he did this so that Jeremy Ross would eat it. The boy's dad then gives him a task and tells him that in order for enemy pie to work, the boy has to spend a day with his enemy and be nice to him. The two boys end up spending the day together and have a blast! When they go back to the boys house to eat, the boy panics when his dad gives Jeremy Ross a piece of the pie! He ends up alerting Jeremy and tells him NOT to eat the pie as he is afraid of what will happen. In the end, the two boys plan for another play date and our character shares that he is unsure if enemy pie really works because he just lost his best enemy.
We were then able to watch a video called "Friendship Soup" and used this to brainstorm qualities that we believe are important for a good friend to have. Some qualities that were mentioned were: honesty, safety, goofiness, fun, trust, forgiveness, good listener, and respectful to name a few!
As we ended our time together, I asked students to think about all the qualities that they had identified and asked them if THEY had these qualities.
Second grade students learned about bragging last week. We watched a short clip called "Braggy Benson--So Random!" which showed them a wonderful example of what bragging is and how bragging can affect relationships with others.
After the video clip, they shared their observations of what happened. We then read the story "Well, I Can Top That!" By Julia Cook. We learned during the story that we can either choose to be a "one-upper" where we try to steal the spotlight or we can be a "pull-upper", where we listen to others, give them feedback, ask them questions and give them credit for their accomplishments!
Students discovered that sometimes they become one-uppers without even trying to as some of them have competitive personalities. We talked about having more awareness of these things so that people want to share their accomplishments with us! We also learned that when we try and brag and are not truthful about what we are saying, people often discredit information from us when awesome stuff really does happen.
