Leadership
Much of the leadership curriculum for first graders revolves around a model community that is passed down from previous students the year before. The "town" is called Roxaboxen, inspired by the children's story of the same name and written by Alice McLerran. It is a fenced area to the right of the path that leads from the second parking lot to school.
Children decide what kind of establishments they want to include in their town, who will live there, who will be in charge and what the general code of conduct will be. Depending on where the imagination of the children takes them, so many issues can be explored relating to community, kindness, strife, compromise, sharing, government, construction, engineering, design, allocation of resources and so on.
So far this group has voted on a mayor (Lyla Lou), although there was some talk of her resigning and handing the reins over to Katha after only one day in office. They have also set up several businesses including a Ninja training camp (where you can do target practice and/or train to be an enforcer), a jail, an apple shop with real apples for sale, a bakery, and a recycling/waste disposal center. We will see where their imaginations take them and I will continue to think of ways to inspire their creativity. Perhaps they will paint signs, make totems, build a road...we'll see.
The other pieces to the leadership class are a focus on mindfulness and on being big buddies/role models for the kindergarteners, who are with your first graders for first period which includes Spanish. For second period, I am alone with the first graders, as kinders go off to pottery.
We will be doing some work looking at human emotions, the brain, and how to slow down and focus on the senses. We explored anger -- the children shared how they express anger (hitting, crying, screaming, punching a punching bag, running into a wall, saying bad words...) and what that can look like (red face, gritted teeth, angry eyes) and then we brainstormed some alternatives or some quieter ways of expressing anger with the goal of reestablishing calm (not talking, going somewhere to be alone, like in a tree, running, deep breathing, seeking comfort from a cuddly pet or even a stuffed animal...)
It was a great talk. Next week, we'll talk about the science of the brain so they can understand what physically happens in humans when they are angry. It is a well researched fact that children can reach greater control over their emotions and processing ability if they understand how brains work.
Other fun we have had: the first graders showed the kinders around in the willows (an area that is technically out of kindergarten boundaries so not somewhere they are familiar with), and the kinders invited the firsts into the kinder cottage to play legos. Together they gathered acorns, first for kindergarten projects and then for Roxaboxen (so practice doing an unselfish deed and then getting the same kindness in return), and also Kathleen performed a puppet show about kindness for her second grade leadership class and invited us to watch as well. See below.
