Welcome to the stage of Influence!
“Influence” is the second stage of group development. We know we’re there when students’ sense of safety and trust in their peers allows them to contribute more and more to the group. This includes disagreeing with one another, which naturally leads to conflict. During this stage, our focus as teachers is on supporting students’ sense of worth and agency. We work on identifying triggers and guiding students to treat them as cues for curiosity rather than moments to react harshly.
For example: “When something doesn’t feel right, before getting angry, check with your friend to ask why they said or did something that felt upsetting to you.” Most of the time, people misunderstand each other, so it is better to gather more information before taking action.
It’s busy in Alpha during this stage – but it’s meaningful: learning to navigate conflict makes us stronger as individuals and as a community.
It’s very helpful to celebrate solution-oriented action as well as the little signs of growth and catch them in the act of doing or not doing. We’ve said things like, “WOW! My friend, you have kept your hands to yourself for the last 5 minutes! You are learning! Thank you.” Things like this bring consciousness to their behavior and make them feel appreciated.
What’s Around Me?
This week, we Alphas used their knowledge of their N.W. animals to teach them something about how humans might live and thrive in the mountain and coastal area.
Alphas illustrating wisdom they gleaned from nature…
Alphas are working on a very challenging “Formline Activity.”
Alphas work on their own Formline Totems for their clan’s Totem Pole
Alphas learned that the people in the Northwest formed alliances with other clans through a ritual called a Potlatch, which was a huge party that might last up to two weeks. People told stories, played games, and sang songs. We are excited to throw a Potlatch for our clan alliances. “Wealth” was determined by the strength of their community and the skills and talents of the people in it.
Alpha Clans prepare gifts for the Potlatch!
Welcome to the Potlatch Party, Friends…
Alphas Clans reunite and share songs and gifts, and friendship..
Clans introduce themselves!
Potlatch gifts are the best!
Whew! That was fun. We loved overhearing students pack up for the end of the day, chatting about the gifts they received, “I loved the stuffies the Moose Clan made…what clan are you from?” The Moose Clan also made jewelry out of Moose antlers. Black-tailed Deer Clan made crowns, necklaces, and bracelets with deer on them…Beaver Clan gave out 3D houses…The Wolf Clan made jewelry and shirts, so did the Bear Clan, but theirs was made out of teeth and claws. Otter Clan…and we might have this incorrect, made jewelry that looked like dolls playing instruments; kudos to them for figuring out how to use everybody’s idea and working out a conflict.
In Math…
Ms. Kim’s Mathletes…
This week we worked on sums to 6, adding and bundling 10’s, and following the steps to instructions!
Alphas independently make formline feathers by following written step-by-step instructions!
Ms. Emma’s Math Wizards…
Began the week with a skip counting challenge where each student receives a card with a number in the skip count 5 sequence. Can they work together to put themselves in order?
Yes they can!
We know there are MANY different ways to represent numbers. Obviously, I asked a volunteer to pick the example number for our chart…
And so we practiced writing them, modeling them, and expanding them.
We stretched our creativity when making “number people”. The warm up task was to only use numbers to create our images. If you look closely you’ll notice that a 1 makes a lovely eyelash, a 6 makes a great pair of eyes, many figure 8 earrings, and an upside down 7 for the nose!
Our number sense continues with “10 more 10 less” trifolds. Thank you to Ms. Alexa for facilitating that great idea!
Following along on the hundreds chart…
Playing the “10 more 10 less” board game!
Completing a few computative worksheets to further solidify our number sense!
In ELA…
Ms. Kim’s group…
We worked on reading and spelling our high-frequency words, identifying digraphs “sh” and “th,” and we documented an event from the book The Lamp, The Ice, and The Boat Called Fish, in chronological order…
Ms. Emma’s group…
Began with a favorite uppercase/lowercase letter matching game!
Then we built some R-blend words…
And unscrambled those same R-blends in sentences…
Doing some work in our journals…
Then we explored the importance of labeling!
Some form line drawing outside, make those wavy lines!
Then a fun “Hedbanz” style game where students work with partners to find out what is written on their forehead. Since we were using our high frequency word list for this activity, I must admit some sentences came out rather ominously…but the students seemed to enjoy how weird it got!
We played again the following day, but this time students got to write their own sentences for partners to guess…I knew I might regret this…
Work on our nonfiction “How to” books continued as many students graduated from the draft stage and moved on to creating their final booklet
Finally, I am always looking for ways to implement patio time!
In Other News…
Making “Bon Bons” and Mud pies…
Gaga and tetherball are always a hit!
Using the Geoboard to make an impressive star!
Listening to a meditative storytime…
More meditation…
And more stars!
