Weekly Update

Weekly Update

 In Choices & Challenges
0

Happy Friday!

Although this week was a short one, we learned and accomplished many things!

As I mentioned in my last update, we finished up our “Decision Making” unit on Tuesday and began the topic of “Peer Pressure” on Wednesday. To kick our new unit off, we started with a quick survey to see how much we already know about peer pressure. We also learned about different vocab words related to the topic of peer pressure.

Yesterday, we played a mash-up game of Jeopardy and Family Feud! Our Jeopardy topic was centered on peer pressure and the different categories to choose from required the teams to answer true/false statements about peer pressure, list examples of peer pressure, act out various peer pressure scenarios, and identify whether peer pressure scenarios were negative or positive.

Today, our bell work asked for them to describe a time where they were either peer pressured or peer pressured someone. If they did not have an example to give, then they were asked to write about how they resist peer pressure. Once we finished up our bell work, we did a hands on art activity, which led into a whole class discussion.

Our activity involved coffee filters, colored markers, Sharpies, and water. First, each student was asked to color their coffee filter with 2 colors or more. Then they had to take a black Sharpie and draw random lines all over their filter. Once they finished their coffee filter, they came to me to get their filter sprayed with water. This caused the colored markers to bleed and run together, but the black Sharpie marker stayed put.

After I had sprayed all the coffee filters, I asked everyone to hold their filters up and look around. I asked them what was the same across all of their coffee filters, to which they said the black lines. I asked them what they thought the black lines represented and they said:

  • Decisions
    • Meaning, the decisions we make stick with us, whether it’s peer pressure related or not.
  • Consequences
    • Meaning, the consequences/outcomes related to our decisions, stick with us.
  • You
    • Meaning, the black lines represent us and who we are, which stays the same
  • Confidence
    • Meaning, as long as we are self-confident, we can resist peer pressure.

They seemed to really enjoy our various lessons and activities this week. I was very impressed by their engagement with each one! I can’t wait to continue this topic into next week!

As always, please feel free to reach out with any questions or concerns: btaylor@santancs.com.

-Mrs. Taylor