7th Grade Girls: What a big group today!!!! Girls Galore! We shared our “Happy Happenings” and talked through some anxiety over the math test and then shared pics from elementary school! All girls were relaxed by the end of group!

6th Grade Boys: The boys shared “Happenings” and we wished our best luck to one of members who will be competing for his black belt this weekend! The boys took advantage of having Mr. Wood (My graduate practicum student) with us today and convinced him to take them out doors to get some fresh air!

5th Grade Girls: Some of our girls easily relayed their “Happy Happenings” from the week, but others had a hard time coming up with anything happy that has happened. Seems like we are in a little bit of a negative rut…..We started a self-expression activity called “Thoughts to Treasure.” In addition, I gave the girls homework……to come up with at least ONE Happy Happening for next week!

8th Grade Boys: What an interesting conversation today! The boys came in and proceeded to talk quite intelligently about geopolitical aspects of European countries – which led into racism and then to a discussion about food! They are such an intellectual bunch! As promised…the boys played “Apples to Apples” – their favorite game!

Social Thinking Grade 5: Such a lively bunch…..hard to harness all the energy and keep Brain Eater from appearing! We started our group with a new activity: “What did you say? What did you mean?” This helps our kids understand metaphors and idioms. Today’s statement: “She is the apple of his eye”. Some interesting thoughts on this one! We continued to talk about positive and negative self-talk, and worked on our activity called “Changing Thoughts, Changing Feelings. Of course the kids wanted to play Bamboozle again! This game helps the kids to pay attention to “The Big Three” – Vocal Tone, Body Language and Facial Expression. They are getting better at the game, but still need lots of practice!