Documentation for the week of March 13-17, 2017
Exploring Three Brain States
We chose to speak with the children this week a little bit about how their brains function. We focused on three main areas of the brain:
The amygdala and the brain stem: This part of our brain is located in the back of our skull near our neck and acts like a security guard asking the question, "Am I safe?"
The lymbic system: This part of our brain is located on the sides of our brain and acts like a construction worker to build relationships by asking the question, "Am I loved and cared about?"
The prefrontal cortex: This part of our brain is located at the front of our head and acts as the explorer by asking the question, "What kinds of things can I learn about?"
We spoke about these three brain states during morning meeting each day. We used puppets to represent each brain state and discussed how we feel when we are functioning from each of the three parts of our brain. When we hear a loud sound we might become frightened and our amygdala tells us to run, fight, or freeze. When we get into an argument with a friend our lymbic system might tell us that our friend doesn't love us anymore and we might feel sad, angry, or lonely. When we are feeling curious and ready to learn, our prefrontal cortex kicks in and we engage in creating new connections in our brain by learning about letters or building towers with our friends, etc.
Our brain states act as a ladder, when we know we are safe, we climb to the next rung of the ladder: the lymbic system. When we know we are loved, we climb to the next rung of the ladder: the prefrontal cortex where we can explore our classroom and learn about all kinds of things.
Matching Feelings to Brain States
At the discovery table we had a matching game with faces of children and the three brain states. The children were very talented at matching the photos to the corresponding brain state! Imie noticed that some pictures matched the amygdala and the lymbic system. Ariel S. agreed that sometimes when we are angry it's because we are feeling a lot of emotions and sometimes when we are angry it's because we are feeling scared.
Creating Calming Kits
We also spoke to the children about how sometimes our brain states assess a situation incorrectly. Sometimes even though we feel unsafe, we can look around and realize that we are safe. It's important to help our amygdala, brain stem, and lymbic system realize when they are misinterpreting a situation so that we can return to a state where our prefrontal cortex is in charge again.
Each day this week we created a piece of our calming kit to help us use our senses to calm our brain and body down.
On Monday we created a visual calming bottle using water, glitter, and glue. Ariel F. was nervous at first to make her bottle, but she was very brave and realized that she wasn't going to touch anything sticky in the process. All the children wanted to go first to make their calming bottle, but they knew that they couldn't. Imie decided to make a sign-up list. She found a piece of paper and wrote numbers along the left side. The children then each wrote their name on the list and gave it to Morah Tara. This showed their ability to recognize a problem, take initiative to solve the problem, and follow through by agreeing to follow a system that they created. They continued to make sign-up sheets for the rest of the week.
On Tuesday we created a listening calming bottle using rice. Oree chose to take her bowl of rice and pour it right into the funnel above the bottle. Leah chose to take handfuls of rice from her bowl and drop them into the funnel.
On Wednesday we created a touch-based calming balloon using rice as well. We weren't quite sure how to put our names onto the balloons because they were black. Lucy said that we could put tape on each balloon and write our names on the tape in marker. Bayla agreed and added that we should use the blue tape. The blue tape was painter's tape so by the end of the day it was coming off the balloons. Ariel F. said that we could try the white tape. The white tape was duct tape and it stuck to the balloons much better.
On Thursday we created a scent-based calming bottle using a cinnamon stick. Oree started to shake her bottle right away to smell the cinnamon. She took a big inhale breath and her shoulders relaxed as she got a small smile on her face.
On Friday we put our baskets together. These are ready for your children to use at any time, and having them in a basket means that they are portable and easily taken with you if you choose to keep them in the car. They might find a nice quiet place in your home as well. Wherever your child's calming kit ends up, we encourage you to speak with your child about their different brain states and ask open ended questions about what they can do to help themselves return to frontal cortex state of mind.
While we were making new bottles, we put them on the discovery shelf for storage. Bayla chose to organize the bottles by name on the shelf. She worked hard to find each child's name on the bottom of each bottle and place them in a pattern on the shelf.
On Monday we created a visual calming bottle using water, glitter, and glue. Ariel F. was nervous at first to make her bottle, but she was very brave and realized that she wasn't going to touch anything sticky in the process. All the children wanted to go first to make their calming bottle, but they knew that they couldn't. Imie decided to make a sign-up list. She found a piece of paper and wrote numbers along the left side. The children then each wrote their name on the list and gave it to Morah Tara. This showed their ability to recognize a problem, take initiative to solve the problem, and follow through by agreeing to follow a system that they created. They continued to make sign-up sheets for the rest of the week.
On Tuesday we created a listening calming bottle using rice. Oree chose to take her bowl of rice and pour it right into the funnel above the bottle. Leah chose to take handfuls of rice from her bowl and drop them into the funnel.
On Wednesday we created a touch-based calming balloon using rice as well. We weren't quite sure how to put our names onto the balloons because they were black. Lucy said that we could put tape on each balloon and write our names on the tape in marker. Bayla agreed and added that we should use the blue tape. The blue tape was painter's tape so by the end of the day it was coming off the balloons. Ariel F. said that we could try the white tape. The white tape was duct tape and it stuck to the balloons much better.
On Thursday we created a scent-based calming bottle using a cinnamon stick. Oree started to shake her bottle right away to smell the cinnamon. She took a big inhale breath and her shoulders relaxed as she got a small smile on her face.
On Friday we put our baskets together. These are ready for your children to use at any time, and having them in a basket means that they are portable and easily taken with you if you choose to keep them in the car. They might find a nice quiet place in your home as well. Wherever your child's calming kit ends up, we encourage you to speak with your child about their different brain states and ask open ended questions about what they can do to help themselves return to frontal cortex state of mind.
While we were making new bottles, we put them on the discovery shelf for storage. Bayla chose to organize the bottles by name on the shelf. She worked hard to find each child's name on the bottom of each bottle and place them in a pattern on the shelf.
New Literacy Work This Week
On Monday, Hillel discovered that he could make an H with the blocks. He went on to create other letters in English and in Hebrew. After snack, Ariel S., Bayla, and Oree decided to join him.
On Tuesday, the children were too wiggly to sit down for a normal literacy time, so Morah Tara created letter hopscotch. The children took turns throwing a block onto a letter on the floor. They then named each letter as they hopped from one letter to the next until they reached the letter that they threw the block on. When they picked up the block they turned around and named each letter as they hopped back. The hopping back process was very helpful, because the letters in the game were letters that they were less familiar with, and the children were more capable of recognizing them the second time around.
On Wednesday and Thursday we borrowed Aleph Bais boxes from the Green Room! The children matched the letter on each popsicle stick with the letter on the box. They began by simply matching all of the letters then Lucy started to spell her name with the letter matches. Imie and Ariel F. chose to do the same thing.
Freeze Tag Problem Solving
As the children were lining up to go outside on Tuesday, they decided that they wanted to play freeze tag. They were shouting over each other declaring whether they wanted to be a freezer, an unfreezer, or a runner. After they tried to be heard by getting louder and louder, they started to take turns speaking. They worked together to negotiate who was going to play which part in their game. Morah Tara asked how they would remember who was going to be what. Eliya said that they could just yell their job as they played. Imie didn't like that plan. Ariel F. said they could wear colors. Morah Tara asked what she meant when she said that. She expanded that if all the freezers wore blue and all the unfreezers wore red then they would know by looking at the colors. The children liked this plan, but they couldn't find anything with colors on them. Morah Tara found plates and asked if plates could work. Instead of spending a lot of time getting the plates colored, Oree asked if Morah Tara could just write letters on them. Morah Tara wrote F on the freezers' plates, U on the unfreezers' plates and R on the runners' plates. She found some ribbon to wrap the plates around the children's shoulders and they were ready to play their game.
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