In crew this week we have being looking at mental health. Today the children looked at food and had to take the time to appreciate each bite. They had some fruit and had to think about how it looked, taste, feel, hear, see an smell. so we used our senses to find these out
Today, in Citizenship Crew, we continued our learning on ‘Aiming High’. Following our last few sessions which have focused on our achievements and goals, we looked at what it means to be “always learning” and why this is so important. We discussed the importance of having a positive learning attitude and the difference between a growth mindset (in which we have a ‘can do’ attitude) and a fixed mindset (in which we have a ‘can’t do’ attitude). We then had to practise being positive learners by taking part in two challenges. The first challenge was to draw a house shape with a cross through it. This seemed easy enough to begin with but then we were told we weren’t allowed to take our pen off our whiteboards and we weren’t allowed to go over the same line twice! This definitely tested some of our positive attitudes and a few of us felt like giving up. However, we powered through and worked out there are actually a few different ways to do this successfully. This helped us to understand that not everyone does things the same way but that this can still lead to the same, successful outcome. Our second challenge involved using tangram pieces. All we were told to do was to use the shapes to ‘make a fish’. At first, we had no idea what to do and lots of us realised we were in a fixed mindset and almost gave up. However, after a few clues, we were able to do this successfully too!
In crew today we reflected on the piece of work we started yesterday before recapping bullying, what bullying is and how bullying can affect our mental health causing negative feelings. We linked our discussions back to our session last week and to our expert session. We then discussed that different feelings are experienced in different parts of our bodies. We looked at a variety of different feelings including being angry, shy, proud, confident, bored and happy then thought about which parts of our body tell us when we have these feelings. We discussed when we get sweaty hands or shaking hands, butterflies in our tummy, our heart beating quickly, seeing red and also feeling tearful. We shared times we have felt these different things. We then moved onto thinking about why? We discussed that when we experience uncomfortable feelings, it is our body’s way of saying that we need to change the situation. We discussed the different things we may do. Some of these included sharing our feelings with a trusted friend or adult, writing down how we feel, drawing an image or doodling to show our feelings or doing something positive like walking. From here we moved onto body image where we discussed that our feelings can be affected when we feel like we need to look a certain way, wear certain clothes and have our hair a certain way. We discussed that this can cause us to have low self esteem as we don’t feel good enough. We also discussed how the media can have a massive impact on this too.
We then continued to work on some of the work for our final product 🙂 We are really enjoying our crew sessions 🙂
Last Thursday we continued our work on mental health and started to think about what positive and negative feelings are. We discussed that feelings can be both comfortable and uncomfortable. We talked about how all feelings are important and aren’t ever described as good or bad. From here we started to think about negative feelings. We discussed the way in which the feeling is uncomfortable, what the feeling is telling us and what we should do. We referred back to our expert visit and thought about some of the points he had raised and discussed. Next we discussed how negative feelings can be feelings of worry and feelings of pressure. We tried to think of times when we had felt this and some of us shared our experiences. From here we explored a picture, we thought about what was happening in the picture, how someone may feel if the situation was happening to them, the positive and negative feelings involved and how the feelings should be addressed and how. It was important we discussed how negative feelings can be turned into a positive and the small changes we can put in place to do this.
This moved us nicely onto today’s crew session where we thought more about ourselves and our own mental health. We created our own display that shows who we are. This piece of work will be part of our final product for our current expedition and will really showcase us as individuals. We haven’t finished this yet, but you can see it coming together nicely…
This morning for Challenge Crew we worked in small groups to complete ‘The Group Hop’ challenge. This required us to use our coordination and communication skills. We worked in small groups and began by standing in a straight line, we then placed our right hand on the shoulder of the person in front of us and gave them our left leg/ankle to hold. We then had to see how far we could hop along together without toppling over! We then challenged ourselves to see who could hop the farthest! It was great fun but we definitely encountered a few hurdles! During our debrief we realised that communication was vital and that we had to work as a team to be successful.
In crew this morning we reflected on our expert visit yesterday and created an anchor chart all about mental health. We then watched some clips to further develop our knowledge. The main thing we took away from these videos is that talking is so important. We discussed some of the different things that can be done to help someone with a mental health issue and how everyone is different. Some great discussions MI 🙂
In crew this morning we started to explore mental health ready for our expert visit in the afternoon, a talk from a mental health nurse. This visit links to our current expedition but is also preparing us nicely for mental health week next week.
We started our discussion this morning by thinking about what mental health is, what we mean by mental health issues and how we can look after our mental health. We discussed rights of children and why everyone’s voice matters. From here we explored a scenario and unpicked what the scenario was saying. We discussed the feelings of the character in the scenario then thought about the difference between mental health and physical health.
We then thought more about our own crew and the things that make us feel more confident and comfortable. We discussed following our crew norms, listening carefully to what others have to say and never laughing at other peoples questions. We discussed that no questions are ‘silly’. More discussions will continue in Crew tomorrow.
Next we thought about some of the questions we would like to ask the expert in the afternoon. We came up with some great questions, ‘what are some of the different mental health issues? How do you help people? How do you treat them? How do you help people to get better? Can you prevent mental health problems? What do I do if I’m worried about my mental health? What should I do if i’m worried about a friend? How do I spot signs of mental ill health? What are the symptoms of anxiety? How many times do you see a patient?’ Tomorrow we will discuss how our expert links back to our guiding questions.
Today, Crew Hamill took part in one of their favourite crew challenges – Leaning Tower of Feetza! We had to work in mini crews to see which team could build the tallest, free-standing tower with their shoes. We had to make sure our tower remained standing for at least 30 seconds once we let go. We had two rounds and each managed to score a point!
Today we started our crew session with the birthday line up challenge. We had to order ourselves in the correct order and to do this we had to communicate effectively. After the first challenge we thought about how the challenge had gone and thought about how we could work together a little better for the next challenge. We also ordered ourselves looking at our shoe size and our height! We really enjoyed our crew challenge this morning 🙂
