Teacher leader, Nona Loftis, from Poinsettia Elementary School read an article describing Harmony SEL in the San Diego Union Tribune.
As an experienced Kindergarten teacher, she was searching for an organized program with strategies and lessons to help solve conflicts on the playground that often found themselves back in her classroom taking away valuable teaching time.
She viewed Harmony as way to help children better adjust to school, get along with their peers, work with new friends, and support different social-emotional needs and temperaments in her classroom.
She invited a Harmony Ambassador to share the program with her fellow district Transitional Kindergarten (TK) teachers, and the rest is history. The Carlsbad TK teachers were trained as a team, and now collaboratively plan lessons and share that they appreciate the intentional relationship-building activities and lessons, and Z storybooks that engage students in solving everyday problems that young children encounter.
“Our children are improving communication and compassion as they practice listening to one another. Young children tend to be very ‘me’ oriented and Harmony activities intentionally encourage children to share and listen to one another. New friends are finding out what the other person thinks and feels. So many of my children now will play with groups of children—we don’t see the isolation of children not knowing how to participate with other kids, and I never seem to hear: ‘She/he won’t play with me.’ It’s amazing because I seldom deal with conflict anymore.”
–Nona Loftis, Transitional Kindergarten Teacher, Poinsettia Elementary
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