Reading specialist, Heidi Taris, introduces the activity to her Wilder Family
Wilder Elementary School hosted a Wilder Families session on the afternoon of Tuesday, September 17. About five times a year, students visit their Wilder Family, which is a group of youngsters from various grade levels assigned to the same Wilder Family Teacher. The children participate in an activity based around Social Emotional Learning.
For this session, families completed an activity called “Making Connections” to build community and a sense of belonging. The objective was to create one large circle where every person is physically linked with two others. One student volunteer stood with one hand on his/her hip, and then shared a statement about them self to the group. When peers from the rest of the group heard something they had in common with the first volunteer, they were invited to link elbows. The process of sharing and linking continued until the last person joined the long chain of connections to share something that linked with the very first volunteer.
The next Wilder family session is scheduled for November 26.