On Thursday, we had our first school liturgy. Father Matthew led us all in reverent prayer and reflection, and the choir led us in beautiful song. Students were very respectful in their listening and their participation. Our class will be hosting the next mass at Thanksgiving so students from our class will be doing the readings, intentions and prayers.
We have been discussing various strategies to self-regulate - how to handle different emotions and what to do to get back to a state of caterpillar calm (breathing, safe place, "You get what you get and you don't get upset" rule, etc.). Now we are working on the self-control portion of self-reg. The marshmallow challenge is a fun way to test to see if you can wait for something....if you can do work with distracting goings on and thoughts. Each student was given a marshmallow (2 MM's if they disliked marshmallows) and was told that they may eat the marshmallow right away if they like. They could also decide to wait, don't lick or eat the marshmallow, and if was intact when I came back they got a second marshmallow (2 MM's). They were free to eat both upon receiving the second one. It was fun to observe strategies girls and boys employed to resist temptation and get work done. A great first step in self-discovery of his/her level of self-control...everyone benefitted from this exercise.