Perseverance & the Power of Positive Langauge!

Over the last two weeks we have been exploring the character strength of Perseverance. Many of us knew that perseverance was all about effort and working at something until we succeed. 

What we didn't realise was that the langauge we use (to ourselves and sometimes others) can either help us to persevere and experience success or hold us back!

We started our session off by completing a pretty difficult challenge. While we were working on the challenge Susie recorded the things we said. When time was up we had a look at the board.....we were a little shocked at the things we said to ourselves.

After we had a little time to reflect on this we all came up with some positive and helpful phrases or words we could say to ourselves or others when we are finding something challenging.

Our challenge this week has been to remember the power of positive language and use our helpful phrases, when we need to use our strength of perseverance throughout our learning in Tautoru.

 

Cross Country

Cross Country.
There has been plenty of zest, bravery, perseverance and self regulation going on at WBS this week as we all train for the Cross Country run. We are looking forward to running on the beach next Wednesday. Come and cheer us on!!!

Statistics

During this term some of the time, we will be working on Statistics in Maths. We will be learning to gather, group and display data, and make statements about it. Today some of us made graphs about dragons, looking at their characteristics as a way to sort them.

Some of us made graphs according to age, book bag, numbers on cards, etc.


We are trying to make statements using words like more, less and the same.

Perseverance

We have started the term learning about character strengths. One group has been focusing on perseverance.



We watched a video and then discussed how the character in the video showed perseverance when faced with a challenge. Many of the students made connections to their own experiences when learning a new skill.



The students then worked in groups to play a game that required lots of communication, perseverance, and hopefully success!

Perspective

This week we have been talking about "Perspective". We read the book "What Do You Do With A Problem" by Kobi Yamada.


In writing we tried to look at some situations from different perspectives. You might enjoy these stories about "Going to Bed".


I like to read in bed because the pictures and the writing help me go to sleep, but the dog two houses down wakes me up and I can't go back to sleep.

When my Mum says to go to bed I say I don't want to go to bed because it is only 7.30 and I want to play trucks, but I like it that it is warm.

I love going to bed because it is relaxing, but the thing I don't like about sleeping is that it is boring.

I like going to be when it is warm, but I do not want to stop playing with my lego.

I like going to sleep to get strong, but I don't like my Mum waking me up.

I like to dream about horses, but I don't like to stop playing my Playmobile hospital and I like to read in bed, but I don't like to brush my teeth.

I like going to bed because it is so warm, but I don't like going to bed because I can't watch TV, and I don't like to wake up because I can't go back to sleep.

We worked hard to write these compound sentences, using "but".

Swimming

On Tuesday we had our first swimming lessons for the term. We had to show the teachers what we can already do in the water. The character strengths we tried to use were zest, bravery, perseverance and self regulation. We are looking forward to finding out what groups we are in next week, so that we can start our lessons.....but we also enjoy the free playtime when we can practise the skills and have some fun.

Helping Circle

We got straight back into writing on Monday morning, and worked hard to remember our goals and Success Criteria. After writing we had a Helping Circle, and we were impressed with what our buddies had written. It was obvious some people had been practising their writing over the holidays. 

There were some great examples of hooking the audience in, eg.

 Do you think I was sick on the plane?

Wow! You really want to know how many rats were in the trap.

Splash! I jumped into the pool.

Wow the flight was long.