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1st-Semester Summary (2024)

1st-Semester Summary (2024)
Abbey Day

Character Education — Grade 5

Nurturing and guiding our children in their emotional and spiritual growth is the emphasis of our Character Education program. The basic goodness that is inherent within each person is nurtured in a safe and loving environment. Within this environment, individual questions, feelings, and ideas are encouraged and honored. Immersion in a variety of rich learning experiences appropriate for each age group is offered to allow our children opportunities for exploring, developing, and reflecting on their understanding of the values of love and respect for self, others, and the environment.

Some of these experiences include expressive art projects, reading a variety of stories or news articles, chapel services, role play, journal writing, sharing feelings, mindful practices, and numerous service projects within our school and community. Our children are encouraged to explore their understanding of goodness and share this through service with others. Our Peace Education program promotes an interactive and experiential approach to learning conflict resolution and peer mediation skills and allows time for personal reflection on how to foster peaceful relationships with others.

Each class begins with a meditation. It is time to quietly calm our minds and relax our bodies. The children learn a variety of techniques so that they may note which approaches resonate with them. After meditation, we have "Ohana (family) Circle," a time for sharing our feelings. We take turns sharing and listening to each other's feelings and thoughts in a special way. This allows every child a chance to express what is in his/her heart and also practice active listening when others are speaking.

In Grade 5, our focus is on developing personal leadership skills through service learning by integrating Character Education and Art in an exploration of character development. We first began with our class community by practicing patience and how to listen empathetically to build on one another's ideas through the Philosophy for Children model. How can we create an intellectually safe community where all participants in the community feel free to ask virtually any question or state any view so long as respect for all peers is held? This is a continuing practice that is never complete, but something we are always striving for. With our community goals set, we delved into research around apologies as we know we were bound to make mistakes in working towards our goal of an intellectually and emotionally safe community.

The children built our community by reflecting on themselves and sharing who they are inspired by "Where I am From" poems. They allowed us to show appreciation for each other, learn new information and find connections we share. We then turned inward to explore what it means to be mindful by researching different types of meditation and the reasons for their practice. Rooted in this study, we then experienced meditation and mindful drawing. Taking the time to learn how we may calm ourselves by focusing on breathing and envisioning what we would like to achieve through meditation plants a seed that can be referenced in any situation - within or outside school. Exploring who we are, especially what we value, how we feel, and how we relate to others are important to our social and emotional growth. This semester's combined study of mindfulness and self-reflection allows us to be more effective, compassionate leaders.

This question, how can the 5th grade be leaders? set us on the exciting journey of the Peace Team. To prepare for our year of service as the Peace Team, students observed different areas of the campus and then brainstormed how we can help our school community. They visited the preschool to learn how to be helpful during lunch, recess, and nap time. We devoted class time to reflecting on the various thoughts, challenges, and feelings faced when being of service by creating cartoons inspired by their Peace Team service.

Throughout the second semester, we will continue to reflect on what leadership means in order to become more confident and capable in this role along with reflection on the personal gifts that we may employ when leading by example.

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