Today during Mind Move Make we worked on expanding this vital part of being human by bringing more awareness to our emotions. I invited one student to come up to the front of the room and explained that he was going to act out an emotion that I whispered in his ear; kind of like playing emotional charades! The other children were supposed to guess what emotion was being acted out. A second grader volunteered and I whispered "angry" into his ear. He turned to me and said, "I don't feel angry very often so I don't think I can act that one out." Wow! Instead he acted out embarrassed, and he did a great job. I asked three more students to act out various emotions, and the remaining students guessed what they were. Part of emotional intelligence is being able to identify what another human being is feeling and to be able to react in an appropriate way. It is also important to be able to identify these feelings within ourselves.
During the movement part of our class we played a new game: Musical Mats! It is kind of like musical chairs accept no one has to sit out. I played the singing bowl and the students walked, hopped, or danced from mat to mat until I rang the bell. Then each child scurried to the mat that was closest to him or her, and I announced a yoga pose to try. Musical Mats was a fun way to keep the energy high and keep the students moving in between poses.
Art-wise, today we revisited the work of Alexander Calder and the idea of assemblage (see more information about this here!). I put out many more recycled materials for the students to work with, and they began to design the background for their artwork. All the materials for this project were obtained from Scrap in downtown Portland, an invaluable resource for affordable reused materials of all sorts. Here are some examples of the students' works in progress!
