Values in Action - Calming Techniques

 Last week our Haepapa and Tautoko students created advertisements for active gratitude (Three Awesome Things) and box breathing. These two techniques can be used to help us re-engage our thinking brains when a stressful or dangerous situation has thrown us into a tailspin and left us functioning with our instinct brain.

The Kahurangi students today looked at ways to use different values as well as these two mindfulness techniques to help them manage in difficult situations.  They also had to incorporate a setting as well as two drama conventions.  Our story-telling is definitely improving and more complex characters are being explored.

Box breathing is a really valuable, discrete technique for helping to manage stress  - check out the link below to learn more.

Box Breathing

We also spent time offering a PMI to each drama group, identifying the positive, minus and interesting points of their drama performance.

Positive / Minus / Interesting - Kaija / Josh / Isabelle (critique by Jimmy, Isaac, Grace and Jiwoo)

Positive:  

• XX did Hermione's voice really well
• I liked the way you all worked together and I liked how you got those 10 house points back
• They juggled all the characters well
• You did all the stuff Pou Toria told you to do

Minus:

• try not to whisper to each to each other, maybe practice a bit more so you know what's happening or just go with it if something goes a bit differently.
• XX did really well with her voices but she could use her body more to show her character

Interesting:

• They had a narrator who was a character
• You blended original Harry Potter story elements with all the things we are learning about
• Almost all the kids played two parts
• I liked the way that they found a way to solve the problem that used box breathing.
• They all used their accents really well

Positive / Minus / Interesting - Jiwoo/ Isaac / Jimmy / Grace (critique by Kaija, Josh, Isabelle)

Positive:

• I like that you found a lamborghini at a haunted mansion!
• I liked how you were funny but you still showed the values for us to see

Minus

• What does prudence mean? You could add in a bit of a definition
• I didn't really understand that you were at a mansion - that wasn't too clear.

Interesting

• I liked your freeze frame
• Grace's character had a knife and she was only 5 years old!
• I liked that the two 5 year olds drove for a long time with one steering and the other using the pedals. It was a long time till they crashed.