Finals week is currently upon us!!! My students have been stressing and cracking down on their schoolwork over the past two weeks, but amidst all of the looming finals anxiety, we managed to have fruitful discussions regarding both Fear and Negativity Bias.
After watching inside out, we talked about the Fear emotion and the good and bad things about this emotion's role in our lives. It can help keep us safe from dangerous situations while, on the flip side, also keeping us from living our best lives outside of our comfort zones. We discussed the role of anxiety and how this related to our own Negativity Biases - Finals week came into the topic of discussion for most of my classes.
The second half of the week we performed grade checks and my Mentor Leader's checked in with everyone regarding their GPA stance going into next week. As a class we reviewed study techniques and I handed out flashcards to the students who needed them. This week I am offering up my office to all of my seniors during my planning periods, often times the study time given in study hall, lunch room, and in other classrooms are extremely rambunctious so if they needed a quiet space to focus, I have their back! Our school is also sending out Eagle Care Packages to our seniors from the teachers so I chose a few of my extra stressed seniors to receive some snacks and study prep materials to make this week a little less stressful. Wish my YESS students luck this week!
See you next year,
Ms. Castro
Monday, December 18, 2017
Monday, December 11, 2017
Exploring Our Feels
Welcome back everyone! Over here at Adams City we are diligently working toward holiday break, but before break is... dun dun dun... FINALS! At this time of year tension is high between my students feeling both stress and exhaustion, which is why our lesson about Emotions fell at a good time. We not only discussed mental health, but also connected the week before's lessons on the brain to help us understand why we have been feeling this way. We not only related the Emotions lesson with the stress from school, but also the stress, anger, sadness, fear, and happiness they experience outside of the classroom.
We spoke candidly about each of the 6 universal emotions - Sadness, Happiness, Anger, Surprise, Fear, and Disgust. We did an activity where 6 groups of students made spider charts on posters, writing down images, words, and phrases that came to mind when they thought about experiencing each emotions. Each group rotated so that everyone had a chance to give input about each emotion. I thought it was interesting that in almost every single classroom, the emotion that had the most words around it at the end of the activity was Sadness. We took a moment to acknowledge this and talk about mental health in relation to their generation, it isn't always happiness and rainbows when you're growing up in a community like Commerce City where resources that can attribute to your success is limited. But we talked about the importance of coping mechanisms, support systems, and shifting perspectives to a positive outlook in relation to Today I Choose.
We also utilized this lesson to watch Inside Out, an award winning Pixar movie that dives into the psychology of the brain in relation to the main emotions that humans experience. To ensure engagement, I found an Inside Out fill in the blank hand out that explored all of the different emotions broken down in the movie. The movie made us feel all of the emotions right along with the main character, Riley, it had even the most quiet students laughing and even crying... Especially when Bing Bong got left behind in the obsolete memory abyss - symbolizing what we all go through when we grow up and mature. It was not only extremely relatable but so educational in a fun and colorful way.
Until next week,
Ms. Castro
We spoke candidly about each of the 6 universal emotions - Sadness, Happiness, Anger, Surprise, Fear, and Disgust. We did an activity where 6 groups of students made spider charts on posters, writing down images, words, and phrases that came to mind when they thought about experiencing each emotions. Each group rotated so that everyone had a chance to give input about each emotion. I thought it was interesting that in almost every single classroom, the emotion that had the most words around it at the end of the activity was Sadness. We took a moment to acknowledge this and talk about mental health in relation to their generation, it isn't always happiness and rainbows when you're growing up in a community like Commerce City where resources that can attribute to your success is limited. But we talked about the importance of coping mechanisms, support systems, and shifting perspectives to a positive outlook in relation to Today I Choose.
We also utilized this lesson to watch Inside Out, an award winning Pixar movie that dives into the psychology of the brain in relation to the main emotions that humans experience. To ensure engagement, I found an Inside Out fill in the blank hand out that explored all of the different emotions broken down in the movie. The movie made us feel all of the emotions right along with the main character, Riley, it had even the most quiet students laughing and even crying... Especially when Bing Bong got left behind in the obsolete memory abyss - symbolizing what we all go through when we grow up and mature. It was not only extremely relatable but so educational in a fun and colorful way.
Until next week,
Ms. Castro
Monday, December 4, 2017
Mind Blown by The Brain 101
Last week we welcomed back our eagles from Thanksgiving break that flew by way too quickly for both students and staff. After a short lesson on re centering ourselves and the importance of practicing mindfulness after the holiday, we hit the ground running by introducing the brain and all of its functions in our lives.
The Brain 101 included us breaking down brain development and learning about the different stages of brain maturity and what parts light up when we encounter certain situations in life. This was interesting because we discussed relevant problems in our school, fighting and sleep schedules. We talked about decision making and about how in teens brains, they react from emotions and from the ego rather than the developed frontal cortex that allows a person to rationalize options and consequences. We learned about the disturbing fact that teens don't start developing melatonin until 1 am while most adults don't produce it until 10 pm - they wanted to bring this info to the admin to advocate for later school start times- ha! We also discussed what facts, thoughts, and concepts blow our minds. We watched a viral video that showed pop culture icon, Jaden Smith, talk about mind-blowing facts that left us questioning whether or not these were in fact valid and scientifically proven. One fact that was shared that was interesting and funny was that the brain came up with the term/name for itself!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dIcgyj1F9ms
This moved our discussion towards how the brain can perceive reality based on what they believe to be true and trustworthy. This lead us to bring up silly things like conspiracy theories like secret societies, celebrity vampires, alternate historical events, and different theories on the way that world secretly works. What makes us believe theories to be true? We also explored the way the mind can be altered by isolation and watched a video about how the chemicals in the brain can decline health wise and start to create new realities in order to survive situations like solitary confinement.
We broke down the 13 brain terms by doing a crossword quiz where my students were allowed to use our notes that we took during our discussion that day. We are having a bit of a challenge with attendance in my morning classes so the quiz that was administered was not allowed to be made up. Hopefully, this will help our class culture by influencing students to be here and on time, this is something my mentor leaders and I will be brainstorming this week as to how to promote, and possibly reward, attendance. Next week I will update on the strategies we come up with and if any changes have been observed on that front!
Until next week,
Ms. Castro
The Brain 101 included us breaking down brain development and learning about the different stages of brain maturity and what parts light up when we encounter certain situations in life. This was interesting because we discussed relevant problems in our school, fighting and sleep schedules. We talked about decision making and about how in teens brains, they react from emotions and from the ego rather than the developed frontal cortex that allows a person to rationalize options and consequences. We learned about the disturbing fact that teens don't start developing melatonin until 1 am while most adults don't produce it until 10 pm - they wanted to bring this info to the admin to advocate for later school start times- ha! We also discussed what facts, thoughts, and concepts blow our minds. We watched a viral video that showed pop culture icon, Jaden Smith, talk about mind-blowing facts that left us questioning whether or not these were in fact valid and scientifically proven. One fact that was shared that was interesting and funny was that the brain came up with the term/name for itself!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dIcgyj1F9ms
This moved our discussion towards how the brain can perceive reality based on what they believe to be true and trustworthy. This lead us to bring up silly things like conspiracy theories like secret societies, celebrity vampires, alternate historical events, and different theories on the way that world secretly works. What makes us believe theories to be true? We also explored the way the mind can be altered by isolation and watched a video about how the chemicals in the brain can decline health wise and start to create new realities in order to survive situations like solitary confinement.
We broke down the 13 brain terms by doing a crossword quiz where my students were allowed to use our notes that we took during our discussion that day. We are having a bit of a challenge with attendance in my morning classes so the quiz that was administered was not allowed to be made up. Hopefully, this will help our class culture by influencing students to be here and on time, this is something my mentor leaders and I will be brainstorming this week as to how to promote, and possibly reward, attendance. Next week I will update on the strategies we come up with and if any changes have been observed on that front!
Until next week,
Ms. Castro
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)