Week 2, Lesson 1

It was another fun day with these Mini Mermaids!  We did a brief review of our team rules, and the Mini Mermaid story for our one new girl, and then we decided on a team name!  We are officially the "Speedy Sailfish".  The sailfish is the fastest water creature (picture now added to our blog).

We had a nice discussion about the power of our words, and how words can either really hurt a person, or make them feel great.  We also talked about how you can't take back words once they're said, and talked a little about how this is a big deal in the world of Facebook, email, and text messaging.  The girls shared a lot of examples of words that have been said to them that made them feel good, or words that were hurtful.  

I introduced to the girls Mini Mermaid's treasure chest.  It provides tools to help us react to any situation we are in, and help us succeed at anything we set out to do.  Here are the tools to use, under both positive and negative circumstances:

Stop = Take a moment before you react in any way and breath in and out.

Look = Search for and find the feeling you are feeling - is it good?  Bad?

Listen - Listen for and find your inner voice; remember the truth about who you really are.

After our talk, we played a fun game, called the invisible compliments game.  The girls each took a turn being blindfolded, while the rest of us shared a ton of positive things about them.  The girls really got into the game, and had so many nice things to say about everyone!

After the game, they ran!  They did one warm up lap, then some stretches, inch worms, jumping jacks, and all of our fun warm-ups.

Then I ran a lap with them, and we talked about pacing ourselves.  No one was allowed to pass me.  We did some slow jogging, and a few quick bursts.  The girls like to show me how much quicker they are than me, it was tough not to pass me up.

We noticed a pretty cool group shadow on our lap...we had to stop for just a moment...

After their lap with me the girls ran a few more laps, and they worked on pushing themselves just a little bit.  We talked about breathing techniques, and also shared a few of our own strategies that help us to push ourselves when we feel like quitting.

After running the girls did a few sit-ups and push-ups, and then did their journals.  They wrote down in their journals all of the nice compliments that they were given during our game.

These girls are so much fun, I can't wait for our next lesson!