MACS welcomes Mrs. Kaitlin Roig-Debellis!

Students anxiously anticipated the arrival of the creator of Classes 4 Classes which has inspired our social emotional learning to reach new distances and depths with our students and school community as a whole. Each grade, K-5, took part in creating a thank you gift for Katilin to present her at our whole school assembly on Friday, May 20th.

Kindergarten authored and illustrated a book titled What Kindness Looks Like to me. 

    
First and second grade read the book Alexander and the Terrible Horrible No Good Very Bad Day. We rewrote the book to reflect our power of choice and titled it Alexander Chooses to Have a Great Day! 

   

Third grade authored and illustrated a book titled The 12 Concepts of Kindness. 

4th/5th graders were asked to reflect and find a connection to a quote I found relevant to our C4C mission.

“Do a deed of simple kindness; though it’s end you may not see, it may reach like widening ripples, down a long eternity.”   – Joseph Norris 

1. What does this mean to you?

2. How do you represent this?

3. Why is this important?

 

Thank you so much Katilin for all you’ve shared with us at MACS, and looking forward to our collaborations to come!

What is the heart strand?

Check out MicroSociety inc. for more information on our schools incredible roots and what makes an education at MACS a life changing experience!

http://www.microsociety.org/frequently-asked-questions/

MicroSociety is not just a course but a continuous experience in playing with the building blocks of a modern society. It is applied moral development. Through the “HEART Strand,” community responsibility, service work, volunteerism and reflective activities and discussion are emphasized. Students in MicroSociety receive daily living lessons in citizenship. In the words of a wise student:

 “If you don’t do something in school, it only affects you. But if you don’t do something in Micro, your whole company is affected. If you don’t put the proper entries in the computer, you don’t just hurt the person who owns the bank account, you hurt the whole school.”  – Mathew, 6th grade, alumnus

 

Heart is the base of the acronym TEACHH which represents the 6 strands in MicroSociety.

• “T” is the Technology strand. It encompasses all student activities which utilize computers and other technology.
• “E” is the Economy strand. It encompasses all student business ventures and financial institutions.
• “A” is the Academy strand. It encompasses all student training initiatives inside and outside the classroom.
• “C” is the Citizenship and Government strand. It encompasses all aspects of student government, activism and citizenship responsibilities.
• “H” is the Humanities and Arts strand. It encompasses all performing and non-performing arts and cultural organizations.
• “H” is the HEART strand. It is the social conscience of the MicroSociety program and encompasses all the reflective and service aspects of society: Humanity, Ethics, Aesthetics, Reflection, Respect, Reason and Responsibility and Trust.

Source: http://myiser.org/home/microsociety/

Kindness catchers!

Who doesn’t love to make a fortune teller?! To capitalize on our schools origami business, we turned the typical fortune teller into a kindness catcher! Students created their very own, unique, kindness catcher and used them to inspire random acts of kindness among their peers!

We love our teachers!

 

Ever since our compliment cards for our teachers, students have been asking to throw a surprise party to recognize their beloved teachers. We finally brought this to fruition on Friday of teacher appreciation week. Students worked hard to create thank you letters for their teachers which were compiled into class books. We held an assembly for K-2 and 3-5 to enjoy an inspirational video clip and present our teachers with their class books and posters. There was an incredible drum roll as the class book was passed down the line of creators to the deserving teacher and received with a big cheer. What a wonderful celebration of all kinds of collaboration and hard work!

Teacher Appreciation Week!

A big thank you to all the teachers out there working to facilitate a life long love of learning or our students! I created the appreciation station to encourage students to take time and be grateful for their learning experiences this year.

A visual daily reminder in our Multipurpose room to keep training your inner coach!

Compliment Cards!

A bin of compliment cards was left on a counter in the multipurpose room and the main office for staff, students, and visitors to write a compliment to a friend or stranger! I even received a lovely note myself:) A nice way to acknowledge one another and brighten our day!  Stop in and leave a compliment:)

What is your “inner coach” saying?

We continued our work in training our inner coach to override the inner critic that so often steals the microphone! I asked students if they heard their inner critic at any point over the past week now that we’ve been intentionally listening. Many students shared that it surfaced frequently for them during testing. What did you do when you heard that voice criticizing you? Students turned to their inner coach to convert those thoughts to coaching statements! What an empowering tool to take into daily life and learning!

Please enjoy the following video which we watched together. I really enjoy how we could relate to the inner critic in our head as an employee that’s been trained wrong and we need to retrain the employee to be an inner coach. Great Micro connection for all our little entrepreneurs!

Students played a fun game called “What can I say to myself”. We split into teams and practiced converting inner critic statements into fabulous inner coach statements. I was blown away by their responses!

After our game we created our own positive self talk shields covered in inner coach statements to protect us against negative, inner critic thoughts.

Who’s in your head? Inner Critic vs. Inner Coach

April’s guidance lessons involved an exploration of the voice inside that tells us how we feel and how to respond. How does your inner voice communicate with you? Are you listening to an “inner critic” or an “inner coach”? We need to train our voice to coach us instead of criticize us. By listening to our inner coach we will be able to reach a higher level of success and happiness. Watch the TED ED talk now!

Students wrote letters to themselves from the voice of their “inner coach” which they would receive on the Monday morning they began SBAC testing.