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The parent and child will: Read Mistake’s story 'LAUGHTER IS THE BEST MEDICINE' (PreK-2 read aloud with a parent. 3-5 silent read independently). Have your child describe how the story made them feel, then you share how it made you feel. Have your child identify the story’s main idea (tell in their own words what the story was about.) Discuss the importance of Susy’s character in the story. Ask your child: What made Susy such a good friend? Discuss the difference between laughing it out verses laughing at others. Ask your child to tell you about how Mistake felt when they fell off the scooter in front of their class and how it relates to an experience when your child felt the same way. Discuss the 5 vocabulary words above with you child. Have your child re-tell the definitions of the five vocabolary words (page 6) in their own words. Have your child write make a list of all of the different words for “laugh”: chuckle, giggle, guffaw, snicker, chortle, snort and so on. Talk about how each of these words conveys a slightly different meaning. Then challenge your child to write a poem or short story using as many of the different words for laugh that they can. Once the poem or story is complete, have your child illustrate their work. Vocabulary: Humor - a comic, absurd, or incongruous quality causing amusement: the humor of a situation. Laughter- an expression or appearance of merriment or amusement. Embarrassed - to be confused and shamed; to be uncomfortable and self-conscious: Gasped - a sudden, short intake of breath, as in shock or surprise. Infirmary - a place for the care of the infirm, sick, or injured; hospital or facility serving as a hospital: a school infirmary (nurse.) Follow-up/Enrichment Activities: Crazy Collages Provide your child with poster board, scissors, glue and old magazines and newspapers. Instruct them to cut out funny pictures and/or headlines that make them laugh and glue them to the poster board to make crazy collages. For an extra challenge (3-5) have your child pair headlines with different photos to make funny statements. Laugh Journals To help yout child (and yourself) appreciate all the humorous moments that happen at school, at home, or wherever, have them (and you and the rest of your family members) keep laugh journals. In your journals, you can write down or draw pictures of any events of the day or things people said that made you laugh. Periodically during the month, (maybe a weekly dinner time activity) everyone can share what they wrote with each other that week. Create Your Own Stand up Make a list of things that frustrate you. Write down things that make you laugh Think back to conversation you have had with others and what made them laugh. Present your stand up. CASEL COMPETENCIES Self-Awareness: Identifying one’s emotions Having a growth mindset Self-Management: Managing one’s emotions Identifying and using stress-management strategies Social Awareness: Taking others’ perspectives Demonstrating empathy and compassion Showing concern for the feelings of others Relationship Skills: Communicating effectively Seeking or offering support and help when needed Responsible Decision-Making: Demonstrating curiosity and open-mindedness Identifying solutions for personal and social problems ELA COMPETENCIES Reading: The student reads grade-appropriate texts independently. Fluency: The student is expected to use appropriate fluency (rate, accuracy, and prosody) when reading grade-level text. Comprehension: (E) make connections to personal experiences, ideas in other texts, and society with adult assistance; (G) evaluate det ails to determine what is most important with adult assistance; (H) synthesize information to create new understanding with adult assistance; Response Skills: (A) describe personal connections to a variety of sources; (D) retell texts in ways that maintain meaning; (F) respond using newly acquired vocabulary as appropriate. Composition: (A) dictate or compose literary texts, including personal narratives and poetry;

Chairs Music player How to Play Arrange the chairs in a circle for everyone to sit. When the music begins playing, the bag with the clothes and props is passed.

Finish The Scene This exercise is focused on bystanders and their power to stop bullying. Before engaging on this activity, please discuss the following statistics with the participants and ask the proposed questions. Bystanders are people who witness bullying and cyberbullying in action, who stand by and watch, who videotape it and make it viral but do and say nothing to stop the situation. 85% of bullying happens in front of others Why do you think this happens? Have you seen anyone being bullied? Even though most bystanders don’t like to watch bullying, less than 20% try to stop it. Why do you think others don’t intervene? What would you do to change that? How do you feel about intervening? Bullying stops in less than 10 seconds, 57% of the time when someone intervenes on behalf of the victim Why do you think this is? SCENARIOS Read the following scenarios and finish each scene from a bystander’s perspective. You can do as many scenarios as you want, as well as creating your own. After each one, discuss in a group the best way for a bystander to stop each bullying situation. You’re having lunch with your friends in the cafeteria. A boy from your class approaches the table to join you but your friend tells him that there is no room for lame kids at your table. Finish the scene. Your friend shows up with a weird hairstyle and everyone is making fun of them. Finish the scene. Your class gets the exam results, and your friend got a low score. Someone makes a social media post about how bad a student that kid is. Finish the scene. It’s winter break and Tina hasn’t seen her friends since last week. She logs into social media and sees photos of her friends hanging out. They got together and didn’t invite her. Finish the scene. There is a new girl/boy in your class. They seem nice and interesting, and you would like to get to know them better, but everyone thinks they are weird. Finish the scene. Kindness Box Buy or make a box for each family member Buy or make small blank notes (about 4”X4”). Every day after dinner (or any other time), each family member writes the date and kind words to everyone else in the family. You can choose if you would like to share some of the notes you received or if you want to keep them to yourself. Kids who cannot write can draw. Later on you can glue the notes to a notebook, scan and make an album, etc.

Calming Kit Create a kit with items that help you calm down when you feel anxious. Take a small box (not bigger than a shoebox). Decorate your box with your favorite colors, stickers, etc. Ideas of items to insert into the box: - Smell: choose a soap bar \ mist bottle \ essential oil - Visua: hotos of people or places you like \ coloring book \ favorite book or poem - Touch: anti-stress ball \ fabric with your favorite texture \ plush doll - Taste: sugar-free gum - Sound: create a playlist of your favorite relaxing music Keep the box in your room where you can easily access it in times of need. Emotions Door Hanger Download a template of a door hanger here. Make multiple door hangers, each expressing a different emotion (sad, happy, anxious, tired, busy, need a hug, etc.) Hang the appropriate emotion on your door as needed.

My friend always refuses to share toys with me when we play together. Do you have other friends who share toys that you could play with? how would you feel if it was the other way around) Can you think of toys that would be more fun to play My friend always decides what we play with. Sometimes I want to choose too. How can you make sure that both of you decide what to play with?

You can glue your favorite body collages when you’re done playing.

During my research for helpful resources about bullying I found a couple animated videos that I liked and wanted to share with you.

Supplies needed for this activity: One big paper (A3) or four small papers (A5) Crayons or paint with brushes Pencils or markers Steps: Listen to the soundtrack in the video below. Move your hands and art supplies according to the sounds and music you hear: slow or fast, smooth or jumpy, nature or electric, etc. How does the music make you feel? What do the sounds remind you? Draw and paint whatever comes to your mind. Send a photo of your creation to hagit@makemistakes.club.

Alison Kuo received an MFA from the School of Visual Arts in New York, NY and a BA from Southwestern University in Georgetown, TX. She has exhibited her work within the US at Motel gallery, Beverly’s, CANADA, ICI, Present Company, Cathouse FUNeral, The NARS Foundation, The National Academy of Design, E.Tay gallery, Space Heater, the New York Art Book Fair, and Superchief in NYC, Eleven Seventeen Garland, SOFA Gallery, Co-Lab, and Domy in Austin, at the UNTITLED art fair and OHWOW in Miami. International exhibitions include the 2016 Nanjing International Art Festival, the MATERIAL art fair in Mexico City, Paraiso Bajo in Bogotá, and Malagana Macula in Managua. Kuo is a faculty member at the School of Visual Arts in the MFA Fine Arts program. Alison talks to us about food as a creative media to share culture and connect with other people.

her time towards music from participating in school orchestras to extending her interest in music by playing How does playing an instrument support the learning process in Middle School? Playing an instrument is a fantastic way to develop self-responsibility and accountability, which are These positive habits developed through playing an instrument directly benefit students in their other What can parents do to support MS students to continue play, especially when they cannot have in person

The students will take your cue and do the same if you make the effort to lessen the embarrassment of Plan lessons that are relevant and practical A favorite lesson expanded on colors, numbers and clothing They always enjoyed the lessons and reminded me later how much they had learned. I think we have to focus on making lessons “real”.

I stared outside the window of the tiny plane that took me to my home for the next year. people’s homes almost daily, friends went out of their way to help and support me, they bought me a plane After two years I was getting ready to go back home and planned to get my master’s degree. I am grateful for the opportunities, life lessons, and love that have been a part of my life.