Facilitators: Annie O’Shaughnessy, M.Ed and Howard Moody
Date: December 11, 2019 Hours: 9 -3:30 pm(includes light breakfast & lunch) Location: Hampton Event Center, Colchester, VT
Included Texts: The Circle Process Guide by Annie O’Shaughnessy and The Games Manual by Howard Moody
Target Audience: All educators K-12
Two of the most effective tools for developing safety, respect, belonging, and voice in your school culture are socially engaged play and universal tier 1 circles. Circles offer a structured and safe way for all voices to be heard, to practice listening and speaking, to build relational capacity, and explore issues related to equity and our social and emotional well-being. Well led, socially engaged play is vital for students to learn the requisite social and emotional skills of self-regulation, cooperation, teamwork, solving problems, imagination and creativity.
In this experiential workshop participants learn fun, engaging and community building games and play activities that can be used in any setting alongside, and/or as part of the restorative circle process. Participants will:
· Examine and practice pre-game skills such as getting attention for instructions, choosing teams, laying down ground rules, and giving clear and concise instruction and demonstration.
· Explore the importance of choosing the right games for the population, skills, setting and time frame.
· Examine ways to develop an environment of cooperation versus one of competition.
· Examine and practice stop- process-resume paradigm.
· Play a lot of great games that work to build community, connection and trust.
Planning and leading circles requires a similar but unique set of skills. To this end participants will:
· Review the elements of the tier 1 circle process and apply learning to engage in a small circle experience.
· Explore when to “circle up” and when not to.
· Experience play as an integral part of a circle process.
· Review the basic principles of restorative practices in schools.
· Develop steps to integrate play and circles into their weekly or daily work as an educator
About our facilitators: Annie O’Shaughnessy has her M.Ed in Mindfulness for Educators and has passionately committed to supporting educators and districts.
Howard Moody has been facilitating workshops for over 25 years and he specializes in designing team building stress reduction, and wellness presentations. www.howardmoody.com