2017 SMS Alumna Earns Gold Award

September 29, 2020

Girl Scout Gold Award - Calm Down Bags - Girl Scout Troop 3158
Tess’s Gold Award project was created to provide activities and materials for both students and teachers that concentrate on brain basics and self-regulation to support social-emotional learning. Tess and her volunteers worked to construct calm down bags to serve about 300 students in each of the early childhood classes in pre-k thru second grade at St. Monica. Each class received items such as brain posters for understanding the parts of the brain, breathing and yoga activities, glitter bottles, breathing pin-wheels, stress balls, books, and felted wool lavender scented sensory rosaries. Each teacher received a folder with background information on how to use these items as wells as links to professional development webinars that she attended as research for this project. Because she was not able to present this project in person, she worked with some volunteer faculty members to create recorded videos of all of the books that were provided in the bags for each class. All of the instructions, information, and links provided to the teachers were saved on a shared drive so that they will have digital access to the information in the future. The counselor received a basket with a master binder to re-create for new faculty members. Tess will graduate this year from Ursuline Academy.