At Rockdale Elementary o ur s taff i s d edicated t o educating each and every child who walks through our doors. As most of you know, academics is at the top of our list. We want our students to leave RES as readers, writers, mathematicians and problem solvers, but this is not our lone mission.
It is important that our students are also able to interact appropriately with adults and peers in a vari-ety of situations, make and keep friends, persevere through difficult situations and self-regulate emotions. These skills are just as important as they move throughout their school career and after they graduate from Rockdale High School and become productive citizens.
The emotions that we feel on a daily basis affect our learning, behavior and social skills. We are empowering our kids with vocabulary that can help them describe how they are feeling, which is vital in helping them navigate through the many challenging situations they will encounter in their life.
We a re using Dia ne Alber’s A Little Spot of… book series to help students become the best they can be both in the classroom and at home. Mrs. Alber uses her “SPOTS” to teach because when children can imagine their emotion as a thing they are able to identify and manage it easier. The “spots'' are tangible objects that help students more easily visualize them growing or shrinking.
For example, they can use the tools they have learned to shrink their angry spot or in other instances ways to grow their confidence spot. Children do not experience outbursts because they want to. They do it because they lack the tools necessary to self-regulate. We all experience emotions every day but what we do with them is key.
These are not skills that we are born with. They must be explicitly taught, just like learning how to read. The goal is to help kids navigate their emotions into a positive reaction. So instead of throwing a book when they are frustrated, they can take a minute, name their feelings and use one of the coping strategies we have learned.
As we teach these lessons, we hope that students will find it easier to identify the emotions that they are feeling and how they can better navigate through good and bad situations that they may encounter. So, if you hear your kids talking about the “spots,” ask them about what they are learning so that you can help them practice these skills that will help them throughout their entire life.
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