First graders wrapped up their Social Detective unit by putting their skills to the test!  We learned that social detectives use their eyes and ears to search for clues, and then use their brains to think about what they know (Where are we? What's expected here?).  They can then compare the clues to what they know, and decide if behavior is expected or unexpected, and make predictions about what might happen next!

Social detectives practiced their skills on two different cases.  First, we watched the video below of Mike and Sully from Monsters, Inc.  We stopped at a few scenes in the video to hunt for clues, determine how we thought Mike and Sully were feeling, and make smart guesses about what would happen next.  I invite you to watch the video at home, and challenge your first grader to help you solve the case!

In our second case, we read the story "You're Mean, Lily Jean!" by Frieda Wishinsky and used our social detective skills to think about expected and unexpected friendship behaviors.  After discussing clues about Lily Jean's behavior, we made smart guesses about how her choices might make her friends feel, and what would happen with her friendships if she continued acting that way.  We described Lily Jean's unexpected behaviors as "bossy", and thought about what it means to act bossy, and what it means to be a leader.  

First grade students wrapped up their developmental guidance unit by talking about how we can let our bug feelings out safely. We started by thinking about how bug feelings might make our bodies feel bad.  Students told me that sometimes they can have headaches, tummy aches, and a speedy heart, all because of their emotions!  We decided it was important to let those bug feelings out so our bodies stay healthy.  To practice, we cut out and built some calm down sandwiches.  These special sandwiches have layers of skills that help us remember how to feel better, which included taking a break, deep breathing, thinking of something happy, squeezing lemons, and talking about it.  After practicing our calm down skills, students used a choice wheel on the Smart Board to practice some conflict resolution strategies.  With that, our bug unit in first grade is complete!  I look forward to seeing everyone again after our holiday break! 

Our 1st grade developmental guidance unit is all about bugs - bug feelings that is! Students can categorize feelings in two ways - nice feelings and bug feelings.  In first grade, sometimes we know that we do not have a good feeling, but it is hard to label it, especially when we have more than one feeling at once!  Saying we have bug feelings helps express negative emotions without feelings pressured to give a specific feeling word.  After students learned what bug feelings and nice feelings are, we read Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day to talk about why we might get bug feelings. Students came up with 3 things that bug them.  Some great examples included: when I don't get to go first, when I don't get a prize, when someone says I can't play, and when someone doesn't listen to me.  Looking ahead, we will be talking about how let out bug feelings safely so they don't hurt us, and ways we can solve some common conflicts.