Welcome to the Weekly Wellbeing Blog which brings you all the latest exciting developments in the new Wellbeing Curriculum over the last seven days at BIS HCMC.
Over the last few weeks, I have been watching the fantastic Netflix documentary, ‘The Last Dance’, which focuses on the career of Michael Jordan and the highly successful 1990s Chicago Bulls basketball team. Whilst it is impossible to ignore Jordan’s undoubted talent, skill, leadership and passion to win, one of the key lessons I took from the documentary was the importance of teamwork. Would Jordan and the Chicago Bulls have been as successful without the bravery of Scottie Pippen, the zest of Dennis Rodman, the humility of Steve Kerr and the social intelligence and judgement of Phil Jackson? Would they have won six NBA Championships? As Phil Jackson himself says above, “The strength of each member is the team.”
This week, I have asked Ms Elena Fuentes, 8C Form Tutor, and Vivian Tran, Evan Ong, Sally Lang and Kynthia Ly to reflect on the ‘Wellbeing Monopoly’ activity they participated in last week and to consider how this simple creative task contributed to a sense of teamwork within the class.
Ms Fuentes says, "How meaningful (and fun!) was the 'Wellbeing Monopoly' activity! After the extended period of e-learning, it was time to resume our lessons, and 8C students enthusiastically took their curiosity and creativity to the next level when designing their board games. Through collaboration and teamwork, they set an example of how the PERMAH model and 'character strengths' can be embedded in the school curriculum. It was an enjoyable opportunity for them to continue developing a positive connection with others and continue the ongoing conversation about the development of a positive sense of self. Well done, 8C!"
Students Vivian Tran, Evan Ong, Sally Lang and Kynthia Ly from 8C reflect on this Wellbeing activity:
For the extra Wellbeing period, we had to design and create a Wellbeing version of the famous board game monopoly which will feature positive properties, emotions and actions that can be applied to real life. We had to work in groups of 4 or 5 to tackle this task and we basically had to develop all of the famous aspects of monopoly as well as the actual board.
For example, one of the key tasks that our group had to complete was naming and designing the property cards such as Happy Boulevard or the Rainbow Ride which also shows the rent for that property, the mortgage value of the property and the price of different houses and hotels. We also had to make sure that the card had all of the information that is needed on it while also making it look aesthetically pleasing.
We enjoyed doing this because we got to say how we felt about our day and even got a good laugh out of it! It helped develop how we can express our feelings to other people. Also, this activity helped develop our language of emotions and feelings by exposing us to the many positive emotions and feelings that we could use for our Monopoly game such as happiness and joyfulness which we then used to create the property cards and the chance as well as community chest cards.
Overall, this wellbeing positive monopoly game was a lot of fun and it was very engaging and interesting for all of us because we were able to use our creativity skills to put our own touches on a very famous classic board game.
This activity helped us collaborate with each other and it exposes us to the many advantages that we can have when we work with different people. Also, throughout this activity, there were a number of character strengths that we kept on using along the way such as our perseverance, creativity, leadership and kindness skills which really helped us when we were designing and creating the wellbeing positive monopoly game.
Since we came back to school and started physical Wellbeing lessons, we really enjoyed that Wellbeing can be enjoyable and creative in different ways regarding emotions such as the locating emotions on the body task which was quite fun and engaging because we were able to colour it as well and it was just really fun overall.
Also, since we came back to school, we really enjoyed the fact that we were able to discuss with each other about our emotions and why we feel these emotions, whether they were positive or negative emotions and the wellbeing lessons really helped to get in touch with our inner emotions and feelings.
Lastly, we really enjoy the fact that every wellbeing lesson ends with 1 minute of mediation which allows us to relax and get in touch with our mind and emotions, no matter whether our day is busy or not which is something that we really enjoy.
Stay positive!
I hope you have the opportunity to discuss what we have covered in Wellbeing this week with your son or daughter and thank you as always for your support with our new Wellbeing curriculum.
Mr Alexander
Head of Middle Secondary (Pastoral & Wellbeing)
101 Thao Dien Street,
Thao Dien Ward, Thu Duc City,
Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam
Junior Campus
225 Nguyen Van Huong Street,
Thao Dien Ward, Thu Duc City,
Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam
Secondary Campus
246 Nguyen Van Huong Street,
Thao Dien Ward, Thu Duc City,
Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam
