House Creek Elementary students learn social awareness, emotion identification

By WENDY SLEDD

Special to the Leader-Press

House Creek Elementary student Madeline Davis looked into her hand-held mirror and pursed her lips. She giggled at her funny facial expression.

“Your turn. Let’s make faces together,” Davis told instructional aide Mary Erich.

Students enrolled in the school’s Language Enriched Acquisition Program, which teaches children with disabilities through early intervention services, are working on social awareness and being able to identify and describe how others are feeling.

LEAP teacher, Jamie Piper, said learning to take social cues from those around you is a vital lesson as the new school year gets underway.

“We are working on facial expressions,” Piper said. “As a whole group, we discussed the different emotions that we feel. In the small group areas, the students got to practice the different faces that go with the emotions using the See My Feelings Mirror. The students had to say the emotion that the person was showing and try to match the facial expression while looking in the mirror. Some of the students were excited to say the emotion. They were asked to say the name and say what emotion the picture was displaying.”

Each student was given a hand-held mirror that showed not only his own reflection but fanned out to show various expressions of other children. The House Creek students learned to identify the emotions the children in the fan of pictures were feeling.

“The students had a difficult time making the connection at first with the emotion and the facial expression that matches. When they saw the staff in the room saying the emotion and making the face, they got more involved,” Piper said. “The reward was seeing the students happy to see themselves make the different emotions and talking to each other so they could show the same face and laugh.”

The visual lesson also reinforced students’ abilities and skills to follow procedural text which provides instructions in a simple, step-by-step format. The students must follow a procedure to carry out the instructions.

“Students should be able to identify others' emotions and also, they are learning to become aware of their own,” Piper said. “Our goal is to help the students grow their social and emotional skills. We have created a space the is full of support and the environment helps them feel brave and respected.”