News from MLC

Online learning can be a stressful time for everyone. We spend a lot of the day sitting at our desks staring at a screen which can be very uncomfortable. To combat this I have shared some brain breaks with my class. Brain breaks are little exercises that give students an opportunity to reset. The movement sends blood flow to the brain which helps to keep students alert. They can also reduce anxiety, stress and frustration. 

One of the brain breaks we did recently is called ‘Name Tag’. The students put a piece of paper on their forehead and using their non-writing hand they need to write their name on the paper to create a new name tag.

The students had a great laugh seeing the finished product.

Over the past couple of weeks, the students have been learning about persuasive writing. Using a program called The Seven Steps To Writing Success, we explore the different parts of a persuasive piece of writing. Seven Steps to Writing Success is an enjoyable way of tackling challenging writing lessons.

 The program divides the writing process into seven easy to follow steps so that students can slowly learn about each section over the course of a few lessons. This way, we are able to really delve deeper into what makes writing fun, creative and exciting.

Last week, the students worked on their sizzling starts. A sizzling start is what we call exciting introductions or ‘the hook’ which will grab the reader’s attention and make them want to keep reading. 

Here is an example of a sizzling start we wrote together as a group:

Topic: School uniforms are unnecessary

They are uncomfortable, they are ugly, and when you wear them everyone looks the same. School uniforms are so unnecessary. I would much rather be able to express myself wearing comfortable, colourful and exciting casual clothes. Let’s stop schools from forcing their students to wear such horrible uniforms.

Bounce Back is our way of teaching students about Wellbeing and Resilience. It helps us to teach students the social-emotional learning skills that underpin wellbeing and resilience. 

Bounce Back is an acronym that stands for:

Bad times don’t last

Other people can help if you talk to them.

Unhelpful thinking makes you more upset.

Nobody is perfect.

Concentrate on the positives.

Everybody experiences sadness

Blame fairly

Accept what can’t be changed

Catastrophising exaggerates your worries.

Keep things in perspective.

Our topic this term in Bounce Back is Courage. The students spoke to one another about the things that make us feel scared. We learned that everyone gets frightened sometimes. It is nice to know that people share the same fears as us but we also are different and it’s okay to be afraid of something that others are not afraid of.

We created art works to represent the different things that make us feel afraid and to remind us that it is okay to feel this way.

Kind Regards

Mr Thomas Brophy

MLC Classroom Teacher