ACE Upper School students worked so hard on their science fair projects this year. They had the chance to share and explain their research through the end of January. The photo below shows some of our Science Fair Winners. These students earned high points for clearly stating and explaining their purpose, hypothesis, variables, results, and conclusions on their board and in presenting to others.
Participating in Science Fair is a great way to put into practice all the elements of the scientific method, as well as building their executive functioning skills for long term planning and public speaking skills. We are so proud of all the hard work all of our Upper Schoolers did during Science Fair this year!
What can you make with scrap wood from an old bookshelf? The possibilities are endless when you engage your creativity muscles.
ACE Upper School students in our Jewelry Making elective class taught by Tara Barron transformed that scrap wood into flower presses. They plan to make resin jewelry pieces with pressed flowers inside, so they began from scratch and sawed, sanded, and drilled their presses themselves.
We can't wait to see their amazing resin creations!
By Erin Peace, LCSW, RPT: ACE Academy School Counselor
As Valentine's Day approaches, I like to talk to kiddos about self-compassion and loving ourselves, versus focusing solely on external validation for love and acceptance. Many of our students have difficulty practicing the art of self-compassion, and explicit focus on this during Valentine's week can be helpful timing.
At its core, self-compassion involves 3 components:
1) mindfulness: being aware of the thoughts and emotions arising without judgement
2) self-kindness: extending the same kindness to yourself that you would to a friend
3) common humanity: recognizing that to be human is to make mistakes and learn from the mistakes
In order to help students feel proud of their strengths, and also practice accepting their weaknesses, you can have students write kindness letters to themselves, or decorate portraits identifying their self-compassionate parts and self-critical parts.
Here is a cute photos of the 1st/2nd graders decorating their self-compassion gingerbread people today. This was after we wrote down their self-critical thoughts on toilet paper to be flushed down the toilet! They obviously loved that part.
Every upper schooler this year has participated in several service projects from the ground up. They have worked to identify a need in the community, research about it, and volunteered their time. They helped in various areas including spreading literacy, helping the environment, and serving those in need. While collaborating with each other and members of the community, they built relationship skills and social awareness.
Seventh graders, along with Ms. Srinivasan and Ms. Harris, chose literacy as their focus for service this year. In the first semester, they adopted a local Little Free Library and ran a book drive to restock it.
In February, they chose to volunteer at BookSpring, a local nonprofit that focuses on distributing books to children. They spent an afternoon helping to sort and organize books to share their love of literacy with other children in Austin.
Students also spent time giving back to the local community by doing some clean up in a local park. We want to help Austin shine!
Last week, to honor MLK Jr., the 3/4 class did a found poetry assignment based on the "I Have a Dream" speech.
First, we watched a creative video that incorporated the audio of the "I Have a Dream" speech. Next, each student was given a copy of the speech and a highlighter pen. As a first step, I asked them to use their highlighter to flag any words or phrases they found powerful, moving, or interesting. Next, I asked them to edit their list by cutting their word list in half and finally down to only ten words. At this point, I asked them to take the ten words, read them, and determine a theme or emotion they wanted to communicate in their poem. The final step was to write their poem with their ten words, adding any word or phrases to make the poem flow smoothly or make sense.
They were enthusiastic about this project from the start. In the end, they took the speech's message to heart and created a beautiful reflection in their creative poetry piece.
The foreign language department at ACE enjoys sharing cultural traditions with our students in addition to helping them develop their language skills.
Ms. Bao spent time with her Upper School Mandarin classes celebrating the New Year with fun and food. They worked together to make dumplings and students also brought in other treats to share.
By Erin Peace, LCSW, RPT: ACE Academy School Counselor
CASEL defines relationship skills as "The abilities to establish and maintain healthy and supportive relationships and to effectively navigate settings with diverse individuals and groups." These include the ability to communicate clearly, listen well, cooperate with others, resist inappropriate social pressure, negotiate conflict constructively, and seek and offer help when needed.
Due to the asynchronous development of our gifted kiddos, we see a huge spectrum of social skill development among all ages. These social interactions get even more complicated when a student has a diagnosis such as ADHD or Autism Spectrum Disorder, which impacts a person's ability to effectively use impulse control, regulate emotions, and see a view from another person's perspective.
Identifying Goals Related to Relationship Skills
A way to help students identify their relationship skills is by having them fill out ashort social skills assessment to see which prosocial skills students are using and can work on increasing, while also identifying which antisocial skills students need to reduce in order to maintain relationships. With this information, students can then set small goals so that they're able to increase their relationship satisfaction.
Define Healthy Relationships With Your Student
Students benefit from specific instruction on what healthy relationships entail: Respect, equality, safety, and trust. I've included a graphic below from the resourceUnhushedthat helps break down these components:
Relationship Skill Spotlight: Conflict Resolution
I like to tell students that unless you're a robot, you will have conflict arise in any friendship or relationship. We all have different experiences, perspectives, and communication styles, so it would be unreasonable to think we would never have conflict with others. I usually break down conflict resolution using a Restorative Justice lens, and provide the following steps for resolving conflict:
Identify how big the problem is (Is it a big problem or small problem? Can it be ignored?)
Stop to calm down your brain and body (If you're really upset, take a break before trying to resolve the issue)
Talk it out (Use "I" statements to identify how you feel and what you need. Take turns to listen to the other person's point of view)
Problem-solve different solutions (What sort of compromise can be developed?)
Apologize (We all make mistakes, and owning our part in the conflict is the right thing to do)
As with any SEL skill, your student's relationship skills will also depend on how you model these skills explicitly to your child.
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