For the grown ups: How to Deal with Mean People.

1. You cannot control their meanness, but you can control how you react. Try to respond by being nice to them.
2. Compassion. It's hard but do try and have compassion towards the person behaving in a mean way. They might be dealing with difficult issues in their life. 
3. Sometimes the mean person does not respond to your compassion. Make it clear that you will not be walked over. 
4. Notice how the person is making you feel. Are they behaving this way just with you, or with others too? 
5. Take care of yourself. If you are hurt, do something that makes you feel better. 
6. Use breathing techniques to calm yourself down. 
7.Speak with the other person. Tell them how you are feeling. Offer a solution.
8. Escalate the problem to somebody older, or higher in position than yourself or the person who is hurting you. 
9. If nothing works, treat the other person civilly, but reduce the amount of time you have to spend with them.
10. Avoid the person when possible. If you have to spend time with that person, always have an exit plan. While you are in their presence, practice patience and compassion.
11. Find a group of kind, non-gossiping, fun people to spend your time with. The world is full of good people, surround yourself in light. 

We are all different

We are all different. 

What makes us different? 

Our hair colour, our eye colour, our skin colour, our height, type of family, the shape of our bodies, the things we like. 

We also have qualities that make us special. 

Things that we have that no one else has. 

Things we can do that no one else can do.

Some people bully others for being different.

They do this because they feel bad about themselves, maybe they don't have friends, or they feel they are not very good at doing things. 

People might bully over many things such as 

gender, race and disability. 

We all have the right to be happy. 

We all have the right to feel safe. 

We also have the responsibility to be good people, to do good things and to be kind to everybody. 

I can concentrate

Do you ever find concentrating hard? 

Well, concentration is hard. To concentrate well you need to use many different parts of your body. 

Concentration also needs practise, just like a muscle you train daily.

Do one thing at a time. 

You can't do your homework while you are eating and watching TV at the same time!

Make sure your work-space is clear from clutter. 

This is not a good place to study. 

This is a good place to study. 

Give yourself frequent breaks. 

Use a timer. Take a ten minute break and go back to your work.

Is your HW load too big? Break it down into small tasks. 

Small task, done. Small task, done. Small task, done. 

Soon you will reach your goal.

Give yourself time to sit in silence. 

 

Sit anywhere, with your back straight. 

Choose two of these. 

Notice any smells. 

Notice how your clothes feel. 

Notice the taste inside your mouth. 

Notice the colours and patterns you see when your eyes are closed. 

Listen to the sounds of your body.

Can you feel your heart? Can you hear yourself breathe? 

Breathe in and out slowly. 

Open your eyes. 

Do the same again tomorrow. 

Good Manners

How do you like to be treated? 

Do you like people respecting you? 

Do you like people treating you with kindness? 

Other people would like the same from you too. 

We treat others how we would like to be treated. 

This is The Golden Rule. 

Good manners help us practise The Golden Rule. 

Here are some good manners. 

Do not bottle up!

Imagine you are a bottle of cola. 

Whenever something annoying or bad happens to you,  you are given a shake. 

A friend stops speaking to me - Shake!

I forget to put on my PE kit this morning - Shake!

My grandmother is very sick - Shake!

My dad wants to give our pet dog away - Shake!

I left my homework copybooks at home - Shake!

Dinner is the food I don't like most - Shake!

I accidentally spill a glass of milk on my favourite football t-shirt! - Shake!

The next day, my best friend accidentally hits me. 

BOOM! Explosion!

I scream, yell and cry. 

It was the last straw. 

The bottle of cola exploded. 

That is what usually happens when we bottle up. 

How not to explode? Well, you have to do things to make the bubbles go down after each shake. 

Talk to someone, write about it, do things that calm you down or make you feel happy, fix the problem if you can. 

Whatever you do, do not bottle up. 

You can't always get what you want

Sometimes we ask grown ups to give us something and the answer is NO. 

Our adults have very good reasons why they say NO to us. 

Sometimes it could be because the thing we ask for is too expensive. 

Mum can you buy me a PlayStation 4? 

NO!

Sometimes it could be because the thing is not good for us. 

Mum can you buy me an 18+ computer game? 

NO!

Sometimes it could be because it goes against the values and laws of our society.

Mum can I sit on your lap while you drive? 

No, you can't. 

Sometimes adults explain to us why they say no, and sometimes they don't. 

You can't always get what you want. 
You will not always get what you want. 
You shouldn't always get what you want. 

Being told NO isn't always fun. 

You have to find ways to handle being told NO. 

You can throw a tantrum, yell at the top of your voice and call your grown ups names. Some grown- ups give in to tantrums, but they are not doing you any good by doing so. 
Grown-ups learn self-respect when they say no and mean it. 

Many grown-ups will not give in because they want to raise you as a good person. 
You accept that life is made from being told yes and no for different things, at different times, for different reasons. 
And that's OK.  

Respect

Respect is treating other people the way you would like to be treated. 

Many people in the world call this 'The Golden Rule'.

When teaching respect, it is important to teach children that respect is speaking nicely, listening, being  honest, being responsible, honest, helpful and polite. 

The most important thing, though, is to model respect. 

Adults must show respect to each other so that children will know what it feels like to be around people who respect each other. 

Respect is not only shown to other people but also to the environment, animals, other people's property. 

Here is what we do in our respect lesson.

The Present

Imagine a puppy teaching you resilience. 

 A disabled boy spends his day playing violent games in a dark room. 

His mother brings him a present. 

Watch the rest here : 

Thoughts from our children:

The little puppy played around and whenever he stumbled he got up again. 

The little puppy did not give up on the boy when he tossed him away. He kept on pursuing him until he gave in. 

The puppy taught the boy a new side to life, being outside in the garden, in the sun, and throwing a ball instead of throwing weapons in a computer game. 

Puppy has three legs, but he still plays around as if he has four. He shows the boy that you can still be happy and live life to the full even if you face difficulties in life. 

Here is the original comic strip on which the animated short was based.  Click on the picture so you can enlarge it. 

Meet Mike

What does a speaker do when they want everybody to listen to them? 

They hold a mike!

Well we don't have just any ordinary mike, we have The Mike. Mike Wazowski. When we hold Mike, everybody stops talking and listens to us. Mike comes to table with us during Circle Time.

Inclusion

Everyone is different.

Some children are short; some are tall.

Some are good at sports; others do great in Maths.

Even twins are not exactly the same.

We only have one thing in common;

Feelings

Treat everyone the same as you want them to treat you. Love everyone, help everyone, respect everyone.

Teamwork

Together we are strong, and that is why being part of a team is very important.
To work in a team, we need to:

• Listen carefully to what everyone has to say
• Speak up if you disagree
• Be respectful
• Do your share of the work

Remember: A stick breaks if it is alone. In a bundle, it will not. Just like the sticks in these photos.

Positive Discipline: How to apologise.

In our school, we practise positive discipline. We prefer you to make amends and fix your mistakes rather than put you in punishment. 

Here are things you can do when you break the rules. 

a) Say sorry. 

I'm sorry, I was wrong. Please forgive me. 

b) Fix the damage. 

Did you break a toy? Replace it. 

Did you scribble on the wall? Clean it. 

Did you hurt someone? Make up for it by helping them.

c) You can write it down. 

d) You can do a gesture that makes the other person feel better.

Whatever you do, do not be afraid to say sorry. 

How big is your problem?

This week we are doing lessons on resilience. 

Sometimes we need to put our problems into perspective. 

How big is a problem, really? 

We invented a problem scale. Each child had a set of five lollies with numbers on them.

Problem number 1: A glitch, something that usually solves itself. 

Problem number 2: A small problem which you can solve yourself. 

Problem number 3: A problem for which you need some help from others. 

Problem number 4: A problem for which you need a lot of help. 

Problem number 5: An emergency. Something that can be helped with some difficulty, if at all. Sometimes we need to learn to live with a number 5. 

We read a lot of different scenarios, and discussed how big each problem is. Dealing with the small problems ourselves helps us face the bigger problems better. That is resilience. 

Resilience

This week we taught hard about teaching a new word to our children, but as always, they surprised us. They learnt what resilience is fast, and many of them showed strong traits of resilience themselves. We tried to demonstrate this by getting the children to build a large tower made of paper cups. They had to work together, work gently and whenever the tower accidentally fell down, they had to start over again. Giving up was not an option, but finding solutions on how to make the tower not fall down was the rule of the game. 

Here are two photos from this lesson. 

Qualities of a good friend

We are all different and we all have different good qualities. That's why we can be close friends with some children and not with others, because we look for different things in different people. 

What do you look for in a friend? 

Here is the worksheet we put in our journal this week.

Giving Compliments

One thing that friends do is compliment each other. 

Sometimes we find it easier to find what's wrong in other people than to compliment them. 

Giving a compliment is an easy way to start a conversation with someone. 

Here are some ideas that came out during one of our lessons.

Children wrote or drew compliments for each other on each other's journals.

Kind and Unkind

Here is what we learnt today. 
Sharing, playing with others, being polite, smiling, helping, being there for a friend who is sad are all kind things. 

How to spread kindness.

It's very easy to spread kindness. When you are kind to other people, you make the world a better place. 

 It's very easy to be kind. 

 Kindness can be the little things we do for each other.

Kindness

Today we watched this video about kindness.

Parents' Day fundraising activity

Today at the Woodland Cubs Nurture class we baked many cookies. Proceeds will go towards our new monitor.

You can be a superhero!

Superheroes do exist! They are everywhere!

You are a superhero too!

I don't have ice-breath, laser eyes, super-strength or invisibility, but I have these...

I will use my superpowers to help others and make the world a better place. 

How can I be a good friend?

Here is what our pupils have to say:

I can: 

Worry.

Some of us worry a little.

Some of us worry all the time.

We worry because our homework is too hard, we worry because one of our parents is sick, we worry because we don't know if are friends are going to be nice to us or not.

Worrying is another normal emotion.

Sometimes the worry is scale 10 but the problem is only scale 2.

What can we do?

Slow down. Sometimes we rush to conclusions.

Break the problem into small pieces, deal with each small piece one at a time.

Look up for solutions. Can't remember the times tables? Look up for times tables on youtube!

Ask someone to show you how they did it.

This video can  help you. 

Being Happy

Being happy is a wonderful feeling. 

Some people think that they need an expensive gadget, toy or trainers to be happy. 

These things might make you happy for a short while, but they do not give you real happiness. 

Make a list of the things you are grateful for. Even on a bad day, find ten things.

Laugh. Watch a funny video.

Be kind. Small acts of kindness cheer others up and in turn we feel good.

Exercise. Walk and cycle to school. Or put on a dance video and bop away!

Celebrate all your good things. Are you good at drawing? Are you good at cooking? Are you a good at sports? Maybe a good listener?

Smile at other children.

Hug the ones you love.

Feeling sad?

Feeling sad? You are not alone. We all feel sad at different times.

Sad feelings can last for a very short time or can last for a long time. Sometimes the feelings are strong, sometimes the feelings are very light. When sadness goes away, happiness shows herself. Sadness, like all the other emotions, is a natural feeling.

What can we do when we feel sad?

• See why you are feeling sad. Tell yourself that it’s ok. Remind yourself that things will get better.
• Do not give up. If you are feeling sad because you failed at something, try again. Well done for trying!
• Make a list of your good things. Sometimes when we are sad, we forget how many good things we have. Think of all the things that make you happy.
• Think of ways you can cope with problems. Coping with a problem or solving it makes you feel really good!
• Do happy things. Ride a bike, play sport, go for a run, dance, listen to music, spend time with the ones you love.
• If the sadness is there for a very long time please ask for help. Those who love you can help you a lot.

I'm so angry!

Ever felt so angry you want to cry? 

Feeling angry is OK!

Feeling angry is natural. 

It's how we deal with our anger that's important. 

Things you can do (some of them can be quite fun too).

Punch a cushion.

Breathe in and out. 

Do a calming activity. Like colouring in a mandala. 

Play a game that helps you focus.

Do some martial arts or any form of sport.

Pop bubbles or blow through a dragon cup 

(instructions coming soon!)

Push a wall or use a stress ball.

Above all, deal with what is making you angry. 

Talk to someone you love.

The Golden Rules

We have Golden Rules that we have to follow in class. We try to stick to these rules out of class too.