We have done the second installment of the elementary program. This is a 12 week pilot to create Bully-nomore ambassadors. In the second session,we worked on identifying and expressing feelings. We used the FEELINGS card game. The kids seemed to really enjoy it. They are open to understanding that feelings can be expressed in a variety of ways and that sometimes, we may misunderstand what someone is feeling. Kids use the cards to identiy feelings and share something about what may be happening in a situation. Kids worked at expressing feelings and letting others guess what they were expressing. Lots of fun!!! They also shared the cards with the dog and asked them what they thought was being felt. Sometimes, the dog would "help" by whispering a hint into my ear and I could "share" that with the kids. In the middle schools, we are having some challenges right in one of the groups. There are two girls in one group who do not like each other and who are quite mean to one another. Fortunately, they both like the dogs and that gives some common ground. The challenge to them is to find one thing they like or admire about each other. There was a bit of resistance to this, but they are working on it. The goal is to create some common ground for them and empathy for each other-that makes it much harder to be mean to one another. One step at a time! The last session, we did door tags with a message about bullying. These kids are amazing in what they create and how they express themselves. In addition, we are creating message posters that kids sign with a message about ending bullying. We are then sending these posters to a school that has recently had an incident and asking that they "pay it forward" by doing the same for another school having a problem with bullying. The kids seem to really enjoy this and like making an impact to help another school.