Character Education
Mindfulness with Kids
Mindfulness is being aware of your thoughts, feelings and sensations in the present moment, without judgement. Research shows that children and adults who practice mindfulness experience a number of benefits, including improved well-being, increased emotional intelligence and empathy.
We're using Mind Yeti, a research-based tool with guided mindfulness sessions, to help kids and adults settle the Hubbub and create safer, kinder classroom communities. Mind Yeti makes it easy to create a mindfulness practice in just a few minutes a day.
With all the social, emotional and academic demands of school, getting a young mind ready for learning can be challenging. Through this work, we will be supporting your child’s social-emotional learning, a crucially important skill for all young people.
Kindness Path
Buddy Bench
Reflections on Kindness
Eagles Have Attitude
Here at Northwood we know that the positive choices and attitudes that we expect from our students today are what we will see tomorrow as they become positive, productive adults and citizens of our community.
With that in mind, we celebrate a character trait, or "Eagle Attitude," each month. Teachers create lesson plans to incorporate the character trait throughout the month. Each teacher at the end of the month chooses 2 to 4 students from the class who have shown excellent modeling of our "Eagle Attitude" and those students are honored at our monthly assembly.
A Foundation for Life
The elementary years bring exciting new challenges and opportunities. It’s the ideal time to nurture social-emotional competence and develop foundational learning skills. We use the Committee for Children's Second Step social-emotional learning curriculum to both decrease problem behaviors, and promote school success, self-regulation, and a sense of safety and support. Students experience age-appropriate, fun to learn lessons each week on everything from learning to listen, being assertive and handling playground problems. We also explicitly teach Bullying Prevention and Child Protection, along with Common Sense Media's Digital Citizenship curriculum to ensure every one of our eaglets is known, safe, inspired, challenged and empowered.
Building Community with Circles
Our students come to school with many issues on their minds and in their hearts. As educators, we can help them process their thoughts and feelings so they can better handle their situations and be more present in class.
Community circles are a useful practice to do just that. While frequently used to replace punitive forms of discipline, restorative circles are equally important in proactively building the relationships and skills students need to support one another and collectively address the challenges they face.
At Northwood, we believe that everybody does better when everybody does better. All of our classrooms K-5 incorporate community circles, a technique for proactively building the skills and relationships students will need when challenges arise, at least three times a week.
Eagle Attitudes
September - INCLUSION
October - TRUSTWORTHINESS
November - GRATITUDE
December - EMPATHY
January - KINDNESS
February- RESOURCEFULNESS
March - FAIRNESS
April - DETERMINATION
May - RESPECT FOR SELF & OTHERS
