Month: November 2020

What are the Zones of Regulation?

In Div. 11, we use a program called the Zones of Regulation to help us identify and talk about our feelings.

There are 4 Zones:

In the morning when school starts, a student might say “I am in the blue zone today because I had a nightmare last night so I am tired.”

If there is an argument with friends at recess, a student might say, “I am in the red zone because my friends were cheating at soccer.”

If a new math idea is very hard, a student might say, “I am in the yellow zone because I am confused and worried that I don’t understand.”

When we are calm, alert and ready to learn, we are in the green zone. While we would like to be in the green zone all the time, this is not possible for anyone. Our feelings change depending on what is happening around us, and all the Zones are okay!

We can use the Zones to help us talk about what we are feeling and why we feel that way, so that we can learn how to calm ourselves down if we are in the red or yellow zone, and so that we can get energy when we are in the blue zone.

Being able to talk about our feelings and work to calm ourselves down is part of this core competency:

I can sometimes recognize emotions.

I can use strategies to find peace in stressful times.

Using the Zones of Regulation has helped us talk about our feelings about COVID, school, and problems with friends on the playground.

At home, ask your family to tell you what zone they are in right now.

You could talk about the ways that you calm down when you are at home.

• Do you snuggle with a stuffed toy?
• Do you go on your balcony?
• Do you draw a picture?
• Take a bath?

My favourite way to calm down is to walk outside in Central Park. I love to be near the big tall cedar trees!

Have a great weekend, Div. 11!

Don’t forget to try to log into Microsoft Teams so that you can see pictures of your Heart Art! 🙂  We will be visiting the computer lab to learn how to log on on Monday if you’re having trouble at home.

(Families, if you’re having a hard time with Teams, please email me and I’ll try to help!)

Hi Division 11 Families and Students,

Welcome to our blog!

In a normal year, you would be able to come inside our classroom, see where your child works and plays, and have regular conversations with teachers. It’s so much harder to do that when families must stay outside, we must wear masks, and we have to do the daily health checks in the mornings instead of having conversations.

Hopefully this blog will help us feel more connected! We invite you to check out our classroom, see videos and pictures of your child, their work and evidence of their learning. We hope to post links to different websites and learning activities to support their learning if we have to go online as well.

A tour of our classroom…

At Maywood, we are STAR Learners!

S – Safe       T – Thoughtful      A – Accepting      R – Respectful      LEARNERS!

In September and October, we were focusing on SAFETY – following careful cleaning routines to make sure that everyone stays safe and healthy. Please do the daily health check with your child at home, and to protect everyone, keep your child at home if they have any symptoms.

After we do the health check we go inside and line up on the stars, keeping 1m apart. The teacher sprays water and foaming hand soap on our hands so we can start 20 seconds of washing right away.

Then we rinse at the sink, one at a time. Then we walk to the hand drying station, 1m away.

We wash our hands at least 8 times per day, usually 10-12 times. It takes a lot of time. Sometimes we use hand sanitizer to save time, but not very often. We use it when we go to the gym, music room or library where there are no sinks.

We aren’t using the cloakroom, so backpacks and coats are stored on our chairs. We can’t share anything, so everyone has their own box for pencils and markers, for books, and for math tools.

 

Only 2 people are allowed in the washroom at one time. The water fountain is closed, but you can still fill your water bottle there (or at the classroom sink). Please make sure you have a water bottle at school. If you forget, Mrs. Aprim will give you a cup that you can fill at the sink.

Another way we can stay safe is by wearing a mask. Adults in the school wear masks all the time. Some friends in our class wear masks all the time, some friends wear them sometimes, and some friends don’t wear masks. While we don’t have to wear masks, it is a good idea to have a mask with you – please encourage your child to wear/bring their mask every day.

In Div. 11, we encourage students to wear masks:

• in the hallways where lots of students are walking
• in music class where they are singing with the Music teacher who sees lots of students
• when it is math groups with Ms. Stevens’ class (our safe learning cohort)
• when they work closely with their table partner at centres or math times

We can take our masks off safely when we are outside. We often work in the garden at Maywood, where we have cleaned up an outdoor space that we can use as an outdoor classroom. The fresh air and open space helps keep us all safe as we learn and work together.