December's Wellness Challenge

Although we have not yet celebrated the winners of our November Wellness Challenge, it's fair to say that the whole school community already won when you look at all the activities that were planned in November around Nutrition and Body Image!  Our staff and students were involved in Yoga, a session at the Cross Fit Gym, not to mention the Volleyball tournament that took place here at SJW last week! Our staff and students really got active and feel better for it! We also had a couple of nutritionists visit us from the Nutrition Professionals of Canada to speak with our students about healthy eating, label reading, body image, and grocery shopping over the course of four sessions. It was a great month for our students and stayed tuned to see who will win the challenge for November in the next couple of weeks.

The focus for this month is "Holiday Stress".  Rebecca, our social worker, has created a list of activities to help battle the stress that can come along with the holidays.

Home For The Holidays

As the holiday break approaches, some tips to help your family manage the folly and jolly that the season brings…

·         Try to enforce a solid sleep pattern. Your kids may beg to stay up late and sleep all day, but having a consistent sleep cycle will make for a smooth transition back to school.

·         Sugar High- By all means indulge in some delicious holiday treats, but balance it out with a few fruits and veggies.

·         “Baby its Cold Outside”- Get those bodies moving and encourage outside time. Oxygen and physical activity make for a better mood and overall health.

·         Literacy- Encourage your child to show off their reading abilities by reading out loud to you or a younger sibling.

·         Holiday Stress- kids have an amazing ability to pick up on the emotional energy in a room. If parents are stressed, so are the kids….take your emotional temperature and if needed, take a “chill pill”!

·         Blue Christmas- Not everyone looks forward to the holidays. For some it is a reminder of loss. Those who have lost a loved one, are going through a divorce or lost a job may not want to join in the festivities and prefer to use the season as a time to reflect or escape. Be gentle with each other and don’t pass judgement. 

November's Wellness Challenge - Nutrition and Body Image

Research studies show that what people eat can impact their mood. When you are eating a healthy, well-balanced diet, your body and mind are able to perform better and handle life’s challenges. When we feed our body less nutritious foods or starve ourselves, we have less physical and emotional energy to cope. If our bodies are not getting the proper nutrients, we find it difficult to stay active. Energy creates energy…you need to use energy in order to create more of it.

Society has programmed us to believe that the most important attribute of our bodies is how they look. Some people think they need to change how they look in order to feel good about themselves. Focusing on unrealistic external perfectionism directly impacts our self-esteem. A positive attitude and a healthy lifestyle (such as exercising and eating right) are a great combination for building strong body image.

This month we are going to explore nutrition and discuss body image and the impact it has on our thinking and feeling. 

October's Wellness Winners

As October ended, we celebrated some very special students at our Wellness/Terrific Kids Assembly last Friday.  Our focus for October was Mental Health and although we know learning disabilities and mental health concerns are two completely different things, know that students that do struggle in school can be vulnerable to mental health problems.  At our assembly last Friday, we celebrated all of our students for facing their challenges head on and being proud of their accomplishments and successes.  Some very special students were recognized for being especially strong and positive over the month of October.  Here are the winners of our October Wellness Challenge!

Way to go Ryan J, Maggie H, Caleb F, Evan G, Abbie A, and Will W!

October's Wellness Challenge - The Importance of Mental Health Awareness

People with special needs are more vulnerable to mental health problems than the general population. Encouraging good mental health is important for all children, but particularly when your child has a learning disability. Children need to develop the skills to understand and express their emotions from an early age. 

October is Mental Health Awareness month and SAG will be discussing ways of understanding and demonstrating Mental Wellness. By encouraging open dialogue with each other we are helping to eliminate the stigma attached to mental illness and teaching kids how to identify their emotional needs along with tools and strategies for coping.

Although learning disabilities and mental health concerns are two completely different things, we recognize that students that do struggle in school can be vulnerable to mental health problems.  Over the next month, we are encouraging our students to be proud of their accomplishments and not to let their challenges hold them back.  Our students may have more struggles in school demonstrating what they know, but that doesn't mean they are any less intelligent or can't be as successful as someone without a learning disability.  Some of the greatest minds of all time were known to have a learning disability as well; people like Thomas Edison, Walt Disney, Richard Branson, and even Albert Einstein!

We are asking our students to share their successes on Twitter this month with the hastags: #sag #ownmyLD! Please encourage your children to tweet out some positive messages over the next month and we will collect them all and share them on the blog at the end of the month!

September's Wellness Focus - Coping and Resiliency

Each month we are going to recognize a different Mental Health issue that could possibly affect our students or people we care about.  The focus for September was the importance of developing coping and resiliency skills. We know that living with a learning disability can be stressful at times.  Not everyone fully understands what learning disabilities are or what it must be like to face LD-related obstacles every day.  It's important to help our students to recognize possible triggers for stress and to teach them a variety of strategies to help overcome these hurdles by building their coping skills toolbox. At our Terrific Kid/Wellness assemble for the month of September we will recognize students who have overcome something something difficult in their first month here at Sagonaska. Please feel free to comment below if you want to recognize any individuals or if you have strategies that you have used that have helped you to cope with something difficult in the past.