We Have an Attitude of Gratitude!

The Citizenship characteristic of the month comes from our 12 Concepts of Kindness that we explicitly investigate and work on each week in guidance. Septembers focus was Fairness, October was Self-Discipline, and November is all about Gratitude!

One of our all time favorites, Kid President, led us into thoughts of gratitude with this hilarious video that reminds us to be grateful for the little things.

The students then shared things that they were grateful for with the class and created a leaf that reflects their thoughts of gratitude. I was blown away by the genuine sentiments the students shared such as being grateful for school and clean water. Clearly they have a global perspective when they are aware that school is a privilege and that such a unique school experience as ours is something to be grateful for!

I thoroughly enjoyed creating the gratitude tree that is on display near the Multipurpose Room upstairs at MACS.  Over 150 leaves are displayed on it’s branches, bringing it to life. Our motto this month is “we have an attitude of gratitude” or “gratitude is an attitude”. This is a motto to carry with us throughout the year! Having a grateful mindset goes hand in hand with thinking positive and listening to our inner coach over the critic that tends to bring us down. I am grateful for the opportunity to facilitate these moments with our students!

Students continue their practice of being actively grateful through a  100 Thoughts of Gratitude Challenge and their Gratitude Journals which will be on going. Stay tuned!

Kate Dagianis, MACS School Counselor, spotlights social emotional learning and Classes4Classes collaboration on local news interview!

How do you turn your day around?

During Guidance, students reflected on various strategies to use when we are at a low point in the day. Throughout this first year, we have explored many different techniques and ways to help ourselves make the best choice when we are facing adversity, frustration, disappointment, and self-doubt. We watched a hilarious video clip to get inspired and then spent time reviewing strategies that work for us personally.

This months MACS Citizenship awards go to students who exude the quality of self-control. Our Social Emotional Learning Lessons play a huge role in supporting this growth and development. Being able to turn your day around and choose a positive direction is a huge display of self-control and ability to regulate your emotions.

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.