Jamestown Perseverance

Please click to see our classroom blog about our Perseverance Walk:


Jamestown@Sabal Blog

No Excuses - Perseverance With Arianne Jones

A river cuts through rock, not because of its power, but because of its persistence. Jim Watkins

Perseverance is definitely my favourite topic in the Classroom Champions curriculum. I truly believe perseverance separates achievers from the not so successful.  I have taught for 35+ years and in each and every year I have met at least one obstacle that required persistence and determination to master.  

Perseverance is one of the most valuable life lessons students can learn.  It fits in well with all the pedagogy surrounding mindset lessons. Without perseverance and positive mindset, students are slated to experience negativity, failure and lack of self esteem. When I hear students give up on difficult tasks I am reminded of my responsibility to encourage them to try and try again.

Arianne Jones challenged students to ask their parents to tell their stories about perseverance. A homework sheet was promptly sent out and students brought these back to school with some amazing stories of perseverance.  From overcoming shyness, competing in athletic endeavors, finishing post secondary education, and starting their own companies, parents provided the class with amazing stories of hard work and accomplishment.  As a teacher, I have met these individuals, so I shed a few tears when I read about their struggles, their determination and grit.  

Students shared their parents’ stories with each other and talked about times when they have struggled to reach a goal.  Then we watched some youtube clips to reinforce what perseverance looks like and how individuals met their goals through perseverance.  Two years ago +Arin Kress shared the “Ducklings Verses Stairs” video and I have used it for for the past three years.  

Showing this video was a great way to bring empathy to the forefront.  Students verbally encouraged the little ducklings to keep going, as they watched their struggle to get up the stairs.  Even the most self involved students understood how critical it was for the ducklings to reunite with their mother.  Students asked to watch this clip many times.  It was a great jumping off point for discussing feelings related to perseverance: determination, frustration, failure and success. We loved the way Momma Duck kept encouraging the stragglers. She never, for a moment, acted like they wouldn’t achieve success.

We internalized precious lessons about gratitude by watching Nick Vujicic: No arms, No Legs No Worries and Never Give Up by Nick Vujicic

This class could not speak for a few moments after viewing Nick’s capacity to live life with enthusiasm.  The students who daily recited their litany of “why they can’t do an activity” recognized that Nick would have practiced each skill for hours or days before mastering it.  They decided that if “he could do it then they could meet their goals, too.”

Next we watched Kyle Maynard’s Video - No Excuses

The students were awestruck by his determination and grit. We had several discussions about his journey up Mount Kilimanjaro and its significance in his personal life journey. We really thought about the anonymous quote - “When the going gets tough, the tough get going”.

Then students were challenged to write, “No Excuses” without using their hands. Here is a video that shows our experience:

We had a lot of fun working on this activity.  It was challenging but students with good attitudes enjoyed every second.  Some students did express their frustrations with negative self talk but when we debriefed we learned that the frustration was often due to setting expectations for self that did not really match what was happening in the activity. How could you expect perfection on your first attempt? 

We really had a great month examining the value of perseverance.   Thank you +Arianne Jones for your mentorship.  It was a great month!

Perseverance is the hard work you do after you get tired of doing the hard work you already did. Newt Gingrich

Curriculum Links:

Science

• perseverance in the search for understandings and for solutions to problems

Math

• engage and persevere in mathematical tasks and projects

Perseverance in 4/5B

Perseverance in 4/5B

As I have mentioned in previous posts, our school has a 7 Strengths for Success character education program. So when this month's topic of Perseverance came up, we linked it to one of our school's 7 strengths, Grit. 

Arianne’s video was very inspiring. She has had to show a great deal of grit and perseverance to get through the tough times dealing with her back injury. She had some great suggestions for how to show perseverance:

Are you an egg or a super ball?
We did a fun demonstration to show the difference between resilience and fragility.
I brought in an egg and a sky ball and dropped them both on the floor. The egg, of course, smashed into a mess on the floor. The sky ball, however, rebounded over and over again. 
   
We discussed how failures and falls are going to happen to them all, but they can choose to be crushed, like the egg, or rebound with perseverance, like the sky ball.



Can you persevere?
To test students' perseverance, I gave them a challenging task to complete:
(From https://blog.classcreator.io/teaching-kids-to-struggle-growthmindset/)

Students were given a scrap of paper and scissors. I had several examples for them to look at, but they were not able to touch them. As they struggled to figure it out, I wandered around and took note of the conversations they were having. After a short while, I began writing their words on the board:

• I can't seem to figure this out!
• This is really hard. 
• I didn't get it this time. Can I try again?
• This is impossible.
• It can't be impossible. The teacher did it.
• I've almost got it!

After about 10 minutes, we stopped and discussed the statements. Are they egg statements or sky ball statements? No one wanted to be the egg, smashed on the floor with no hope of going on. I let them think on this challenge overnight and one student was able to complete the task! Was she ever proud of herself the next day! She shared her success and learning with the class and we celebrated.

We have decided to use the egg and sky ball example whenever we are working on challenges this year. I love being able to have this reference point for when students are having a rough time. It gives them hope that they will be able to "bounce back."

Perseverance

For our monthly challenge, we were to find a time where we faced great difficulty and describe how we persevered through that time. This was easier said than done. Many of my students had to think a while for a time where they faced great difficulty, not knowing that their daily lives (to most people) would be facing great difficulties.

Once thought of all of my 6th graders found a time and were able to think about how they over came that difficult time.

It was great hearing about Lex opening up and telling about he lost his eye sight and it really gave a different perspective on our lives. No matter how difficult we think we have it, someone else is persevering through their difficult time.

Community

We had a great time working on our Community Challenge for the months of November and December. November began with a challenge from Jesse Cockney to think of ways that our class could give back to our school, and also to find ways to help people beyond our school doors.  

Below I have embedded a Google Slide presentation that includes some of the highlights for the month of November.  The first few slides include pictures of the package of swag that arrived from Classroom Champions.  My students were very excited to try on their shirts!  The following group of pictures are from our conversation with Jesse.  My students were prepared with questions that they had wanted to ask him.  Jesse was extremely kind and thoughtful with all of his response to queries of my class.  The final group of slides are from students practicing a play that they had written to "advertise" their bake sale, which they named 'Mrs. Claus Bake Sale'.  After rehearsals, my students went to each classroom in our school to whip up excitement for their fundraiser.  This was the first of two fundraisers that they organized to help raise money for Thorold Community Care.  They baked and sold $254.00 worth of cookies, squares, and other delicious treats!  The money was donated to Community Care to help make the Christmas Season a little brighter for our Thorold citizens who might need some extra help at this time of year.

November Google Slides

During the month of December our class continued working upon the challenge given to us by Jesse.  My class decided that they wanted to raise even more money for our local Community Care organization.  We sold "Candygrams"!  Each recess break,  for two weeks, students from our class would sit in the halls and take orders for flavoured candy canes that I had purchased.  On a Christmas tag, they would write down the name of the recipient and also who it was from.  The final, and most exciting step in the process, was delivering all of those sugary treats to the classrooms for the school community to enjoy.  The response from our school community was overwhelming!  My class was able to make a second donation to Thorold Communtiy Care, this time for $218.50.  

Did my class want to stop there?  No way!!  We also organized a "Cans For Christmas" campaign to encourage our school community to bring in nonperishable food items for, you guessed it, Community Care!  Again, my students wrote their own original play that they performed for each classroom.  This was used to encourage our school community to help us reach our goal of 500 food items.  We collected 575 items, over 300 pounds of food for our local community!

The final group of pictures that you will view on the slide show focused upon the Christmas play 'A Charlie Brown's Christmas'.  My class chose to put on this performance at our final assembly of the year in order help our younger students try to realize the true meaning of this time of year.  They made all of the props and also gave up numerous recesses to prepare.

December Slides

As you can see, Jesse Cockney helped to motivate and inspire my students to make a difference in their school community and also in the community beyond our school doors.  Thanks, Jesse.

Community Summary

"Community" is such a rewarding theme! Children in Grade 2S had so much fun performing good deeds and acts of kindness for others! Here are some of the highlights:
1. Before the snow hit the ground, we did one last schoolyard cleanup. The children were proud of their efforts.

2. The students wrote letters and coloured pictures for war veterans in Edmonton, as we no longer have any local war veterans.

3. The children loved making cookies for the R.C.M.P. to show their appreciation for feeling safe and cared for in our community.

4. Tray cards for patient trays at our local hospital were next up for students in Grade 2S. 

5. Christmas shopping for children in need within our local municipality was rewarding indeed. The boys got to choose items for an 8 year old boy, while the girls shopped for a 3 year old girl. 

6. The children performed carols and their rendition of "Twas the Night Before Christmas" for their friends at Hillcrest Lodge. They also got to visit with them as they played a few games of Bingo. On the last day of school, the students enjoyed performing the poem for the grade one students. 

7. Quilting with ladies from our community, as well as other Classroom Champions from our school was extremely rewarding for the children. Reading the mentor text "The Quiltmaker's Gift" by Jeff Brumbeau reinforced the idea that it is much better to give than receive. 

 Some great mentor texts for Community!

8. Caroling up and down main street with the Grade 3 Classroom Champions on the last day of school before Christmas was so much fun!

Community is such a rewarding theme. I really hope that my students have learned that giving is indeed wonderful, and that they will continue to practise this for the rest of their lives.

Our community project could not have been more successful.  In early November the students made a list of groups that might need extra help or support during the winter months.  The student discussed who we could help and how we could help them.  We then had some very thoughtful groups discussions on who we should help.  The kids voted and although it was very close, our local Animal shelter was the winner!

After we selected the animal shelter we set our goal.... $500 !!  It is a lofty goal, but we discussed how we could achieve it.  The students suggested many ideas, but our school does not allow big fundraiser projects, so we had to keep it simple.   We decided to do a bottle/can drive as well as collect pennies/change.   The students also wanted to volunteer to do "Chores" or extra work to earn money to donate. During the month of November the kids raised $300!  I was so proud of them.  This was all from bottles/cans and spare change, along with extra chore money!   In December the students brought in more cans/bottles  (We had almost $200 worth of bottles and cans donated to us!)  Many of the students did those extra chores to earn money to donate. Many of the students brought in $20 after the Thanksgiving holiday break, from chores they had completed.  Our change jar ended up with $150 in pennies, nickels, dimes and quarters.  That was one heavy jar!   

We also were able to do a 50/50 drawing at one of the Mazama Basketball home games.    The students sold $218 worth of tickets -- so we earned $109.

By December 15th we had exceeded our goal of $500.   The students had raised $662!  We were able to visit Double C and the animal shelter to give the donation. The students were so excited for this field trip.  The kids had an amazing visit with the shelter and they got to visit all the cats and dogs. The shelter taught the kids valuable lessons on pet care and how the shelter works.

I know how much the students learned from this experience of helping the community, we are already looking forward to our next activity (We were selected to be a part of Uncief Kid power program, where we will be able to earn meals for malnourished children across the world)

I was so moved by my students perseverance and dedication that I took action myself.   Over the holiday break I rescued a 8 year mastiff that was being surrendered by its owners!   I now have 4… yes 4 English Mastiffs in my house!