BUILDING BRIDGES – CONSTRUIRE DES PONTS
5TH GRADE – 7TH GRADE FORUM
Under the umbrella of our nascent SEAL Program (Social, Emotional Awareness and Learning), Building Bridges is a new initiative created to help ensure a smooth transition to Middle School for our 5th grade students. Mr. Jarlov, Mr. Carlier, Ms. Seidel and Ms. Wallen are leading Building Bridges, which also creates an opportunity for our 7th graders to cultivate empathetic leadership skills.
For our first activity at last week’s forum, our 7th grade students (Ambassadors) were paired with 5th grade Buddies and they shared a bagel breakfast while playing “Two Truths and a Lie” as an ice-breaker. We then moved on to “Speed Meeting,” rotating pairs every 60 seconds with moderated prompts such as: Tell about your most embarrassing moment at school ever; If you were a superhero, what would your super power be and why?; A rose, a bud and a thorn: share something you like, something you don’t like, and something you are hoping for this school year. We finished with a Q and A session with 7th graders taking the microphone and answering 5th graders’ questions about Middle School. To create a safer space, questions were submitted anonymously on cards ahead of time to Ms. Wallen when she visited the 5th grade students, and were drawn out of a hat on the day of the event.
We look forward to continuing to Build Bridges between 5th and 7th graders, guiding our 7th graders to be good role models, and helping our 5th graders feel comfortable and well-informed as they move toward the Middle School.
