I know you're going to be encouraged by this meaningful
May Day article from my friend Barbara Gruener.
Do you know the tradition behind May Day? Growing up, I was told that young people would pick a basket of wildflowers on May 1st each year, place them on the doorstep of an elderly neighbor, ring the bell and run. A fragrant version of Ding, Dong, Ditch, if you will, meant to bring springtime cheer to someone’s heart after a long winter’s chill. My sister and I even did this a time or two, and guess what? It warmed our hearts as much as it must have melted theirs.
Research by the Society of America Florists shows myriad mental-health benefits from having flowers in your house, including an elevated mood and a reduced stress level, due to your body’s release of its feel-good chemicals like dopamine, oxytocin, and serotonin. Flowers have also been known to reduce anxiety and depression.
So why not take your learners outside to hunt for flowers. Breathe in the beauty and exhale the worries as you look for a bouquet of all of the hues of the rainbow. Use all five senses as you let the flowers do what flowers do best, give us that booster shot of energy and joy. Lady Bird Johnson said it best when she reminded us that “where flowers bloom, so does hope.” Once back inside, invite your class family to draw what they experienced.
May is also Mental Health Awareness month, so I put together this collection of stress busters that we practiced in my 25 years as a school counselor.
From the research of Dr. Michele Borba, we know that when empathy increases, anxiety can decrease, creating a supersized win-win that prompted the theme of empathy in all of our Mom’s Choice Gold Award books.
In What’s Under Your Cape?, kindly endorsed by Dr. Jean herself, you’ll find an entire chapter (E is for Empathy) devoted to that glorious skill of putting yourself in another’s shoes. Since we are hardwired for empathy, it’s never too early to put that word into our students’ vocabularies and help them make it actionable by understanding, embracing, and helping in another’s time of need. Head. Heart. Hands. Empathy up, anxiety down.
We also know from Dr. Borba’s research that reading fiction can stretch empathy muscles, so empathy is prevalent in these three picture books. As you read them aloud, remember to pause throughout and ask, “How would you feel if you were that character?” or “What do you imagine that you would you need in that situation?” or “How could you help that person?”
Open up Mr. Quigley’s Keys to find a hero handyman jingling through the hallways of his school looking for ways to serve. His adoring students love it when they hear the cacophony of keys, the very same keys that he can’t even hear because he lost his hearing in the Korean War. Sometimes empathy is quiet like that. Just as he steps into their stories, not to fix it for them, just to feel it with them, the students plan a special surprise that will leave you feeling all the feels.
Find ASL embedded into this treasure as well as the ASL alphabet and numbers in the enrichment back pages to treat your class family to an additional way to practice empathy.
Have fun with this little ditty using hand-jive motions or dancing the bunny hop:
Meet Birdie & Mipps, an older sister who helps her little brother process a conflict with his friend Patty. He didn’t mean to call her a nickname without her permission, but can their friendship survive what he did? Join these sweet siblings on a walk ‘n talk through their farming community to learn all about treating others the way they want to be treated, starting with leadership lesson number one: Names are important!
Find out if they have a nickname and if so, are they willing to share it? Where did the name come from and who has permission to call them that?
The backmatter in this book includes enrichment activities to help elevate empathy, mobilize compassion, and practice kindness in your character building.
As Knit Back Together unravels, serendipity steps in to help Levi, whose Grams recently passed away, move through his grief even as he navigates moving to a new school. It’s as he’s rolling yarn into balls to relax that he meets Frances, a potential new friend who offers to do something that Grams ran out of time to do: Teach Levi to knit. Will Frances be able to cut through his fog of uncomfortable feelings and help knit Levi’s heart back together? And will Levi, in turn, find another friend who needs the healing benefits of knitting, too?
Look for some tips for navigating grief, a coloring page, even Grams’ recipe for Monster Cookies in the resource pages of this niche newcomer.
For more information, please visit me at barbaragruenerauthor.com for an author visit or to let me know how I can encourage and support your empathy journeys.
Happy cheers as you slide into summer. Barbara