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Teachers & Students Need to Rebuild Stamina for this School Year
Read More: Teachers & Students Need to Rebuild Stamina for this School YearWe may be back to in-person learning, but it’s anything but normal. Masks, social distancing, altered scheduling, and new safety protocols make the days almost unrecognizable from where we were in March 2020. One of the biggest differences? The amount of stamina you may have for this new normal. And it won’t just be you. Another thing you may notice is that the stamina your students had for things that seemed natural and normal in the past is now fragile. After almost two years of restricted socializing and limited school hours, our students’ capacity to focus and be in groups…
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A Strong Start for Teachers
Read More: A Strong Start for TeachersTeachers: we sincerely hope you were able to take some well-deserved time off this summer. The past two school years have asked too much of you. And right around the corner is the beginning of something new…a new classroom of kids, new challenges, new successes. Although we continue to face many unknowns this school year, here are a few ideas help craft a smooth transition and a strong start for your students and yourself. Welcome your students: Just like us adults, they will be feeling a rollercoaster of emotions this new school year. Explicitly validate their feelings of both nervousness…
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A Smooth Transition to the School Year
Read More: A Smooth Transition to the School YearThe new school year is fast approaching, and the sunlit days are growing a little shorter. It’s time to transition from summer to the more structured schedule of fall. There are still a lot of unknowns this school year, so it will helpful for kids to feel as ready as they can. When we leave this shift until the last minute, the change can be difficult for both kids and adults and anticipatory excitement can become overwhelming stress. In order to create as smooth a transition as possible to this new school year, consider some of the following: Fully experience…
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Rethinking Rewards: Focus on Finding Solutions
Read More: Rethinking Rewards: Focus on Finding SolutionsDuring stressful times, when we are challenged by our kids’ behavior, it is easy to fall into a punishment-reward cycle. We may lose our calm, flip our lids, and lay down a punishment. Then we feel bad and come back instead with ideas for incentives and rewards. Research tells us that neither work for developing self-motivation or long-term success. Punishment and rewards are alluring because they often do show very short-term success. They are also familiar to us because most of us grew up with them. What other approaches can we use when faced with problems like unfinished school…
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Resilience through Transition – An Art Activity for Classrooms or Families
Read More: Resilience through Transition – An Art Activity for Classrooms or FamiliesAll of us have experienced loss and change. We are tempted not to talk about it, fearing that bringing it up will bring to the surface emotions that are difficult for our students to feel. But in reality, ignoring the grief connected with letting go and change creates a confusing disconnect for children. Being able to process the feelings allows them to understand that this part of change is normal and that talking through difficulty helps individuals and communities heal and move forward. The activity below is designed to support students (and adults too!) with transition and change. Originally created…
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Rethinking Rewards: Alternatives to Offering Incentives
Read More: Rethinking Rewards: Alternatives to Offering IncentivesTeachers, you have been accomplishing incredible feats this year! It is mind-boggling how your job has changed because of the pandemic and online teaching. Though some of your students are thriving, you may be worried about many who do not seem engaged and who aren’t completing assignments. It is easy to think that rewards may be the answer that you just need to provide the right incentives to get your students to be engaged and completing their work. Despite solid research showing that rewards decrease internal motivation, passion, and interest, the draw to use rewards and incentives is strong. They…
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Holding on to Hope (For Teachers)
Read More: Holding on to Hope (For Teachers)This year has been rough. An undeniable understatement. Hope seems hard to reach, especially when our resilience has been tested these in these long challenging months since last spring. Yet hope is an antidote to despair. And while acknowledging the emotional toll of these times is crucial, equally crucial is our ability to hold onto a belief in positive future possibilities. Hope can sustain us, and gives our hard work a purpose that fuels us with energy and optimism. The same is true for our students. Students who are high in hope have greater academic achievement, stronger friendships, more creativity…
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Harnessing Hope (For Parents)
Read More: Harnessing Hope (For Parents)Hope is the belief in a positive future. It is an optimistic, exciting sense of what is possible. In this time of global health crisis, economic uncertainty, racial reckoning, and physical disconnection from other human beings, the day to day challenges of doing everything differently make it difficult to hold onto hope. Yet hope is an antidote to despair. It can give us the energy to persevere and can offer a sense of purpose, calm and connection. Parents are children’s first hope builders. Your presence, connection, and attitude can help your child be more hopeful. They look to you to…
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Four Ideas for Stressed Parents
Read More: Four Ideas for Stressed ParentsWe are parenting more hours a day than ever before. In-person school, in-person play dates and visits with family and friends are things we hope to resume in the near future, but they aren’t providing much relief for parents at the moment. Have you noticed any of these issues coming up for your kids? stressing out over seemingly small things, like tech issues during on-line school or having to ask the teacher a question more disorganized than usual and having difficult time keeping up with assignments less physically active less social and more isolated on screens much more than usual…
