Tuesday, October 24, 2017

FALL IS HERE!

Hi all,

I hope everyone's fall has gotten off to a great start, and while the weather seems to enjoy acting out of character, we are doing our best to help all of our Silver Hill friends build their own character in positive and important ways...

October is Bullying Prevention month and the Second Step lessons here at Silver Hill are either in full swing currently or already completed at this point. I have been fortunate enough to have made time in my schedule to join in on many of these lessons and I think there are great things happening around this important issue. The teachers are natural at weaving in Social Emotional components to just about everything they do!

With that said, once the Second Step curriculum lessons end, all social conflict does not simply end with them. We are trying hard to be proactive and continue the conversations with me stepping into classrooms and facilitating additional Social Emotional lessons and developing these essential "soft skills".

For example, once the 3rd grade Second Step was complete, I rotated around to each classroom and read "How to Fill A Bucket" and had wonderful dialogue with the students around thinking of ways we can be "bucket fillers" rather than "bucket dippers". The kids here are really awesome!

We will continue all of this moving forward, but I would like to share a video link that shows some of the videos that accompany the lessons (all different, depending on the grade level). These videos are very relevant and I think the kids really relate to them. I thought it would be fun for you to take a peek at this short video with some short clips from the videos your kids all see during Second Step.

Second Step video

I think the Second Step curriculum does a good job of identifying Bullying, however, I will continue to help kids learn to properly recognize "Social Conflict" as well, so that they can accurately identify what exactly is happening for them. But more importantly, so that they can learn PROBLEM SOLVING skills to manage these things :)

Please feel free to reach out at any time if I can be of support to your child or family!

Enjoy the foliage while it lasts...it will be winter soon enough!

Kind Regards,
Amanda Symmes, LICSW
School Adjustment Counselor