The video clips were a perfect tool. They were short enough to engage a student without them losing interest, and precise enough that it was easy to identify how the emotions acted/felt.
The videos definitely prompted some interesting conversation about the feelings related to our emotions, and how we appear to others when we are acting emotional. For example- "Fear" seems to feel completely out of control. Do we feel a lack of control when we are fearful? How do we then regain a sense of control?
While I definitely prompted and contributed to the conversation, I feel that my students were really able to lead the discussion.
The Smart Board also proved to be useful, because the students were able to come up and write their responses. We used the board to discuss what we need from other people when we feel a certain emotion, and how that can be implemented in the classroom. The responses were thoughtful and extremely helpful in guiding how I would want to build a classroom community.
I particularly enjoyed the ideas of being allowed to go for a walk and get a drink when you are angry and need a break, thinking before communicating your disgust with others, creating an active, celebratory environment when a peer is joyful, and reassurance through discussion when you feel fearful.
Finally, we concluded by creating a set of classroom rules that reflected our emotional needs. Again, I felt like the conversation was thoughtful and our product was very successful. Here is our list of class rules:
These rules are simple, but they cover almost any situation. Make a homework mistake? We do re-dos. A child punched a peer? We are kind to others. A student struggles with work or a home situation? We like to support others.
Our lesson got a little rushed at the end, so in a first grade classroom, I would probably have given myself 45 minutes for the lesson. And once we created our rules, I would have typed them up and hung them on a wall where everyone could see and reference them. But overall, like the final product shows, the lesson felt like a success.
I think this is a very important lesson for kids, and you presented it in an engaging and safe way! Great job!
You were obviously prepared, everything went well.
You had us each going up to the board, of course you mentioned in a real setting with children you would not force students to participate which is very important. Awesome.
This is the one piece of feedback I have received so far, and I felt like it definitely reflects my feelings on the lesson.
This person did comment that technology was not needed for the Smart Board and a white board could have been used. I would argue that the slides on the Smart Board were better than just writing on the whiteboard because the students could organize and associate with pictures on the Smart Board in a way they could not on the whiteboard.
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