This season, Girls on the Run Greater Boston will post an overview of each week's lessons for families/guardians to follow along with their participants over the next 8 weeks.

Girls on the Run 

Lesson 5: Stick With It!

The big idea for Lesson 5 was Stick With It! In this lesson, we learned Stick-With-It Strategies to help us persist when things feel difficult. We tried some of these strategies in our warm-up as we took on a

balloon challenge. We set our first lap goal during our workout and practiced using our Stick-With-It Strategies to find and go our happy pace! The GOTR Goal was: Use a Stick-With-It Strategy when you face a challenge.

Questions and Conversation Starters

1. What is one Stick-With-It Strategy you might use outside of GOTR?

2. Share how you stuck with something, even though it was hard. Ask your child to share how they have stuck with something, too!

Lesson 6: Self-Talk

The big idea for Lesson 6 was Self-Talk. The team learned the difference between positive and negative self-talk in this lesson. We considered how our self-talk impacts our I Can! Power and our ability to keep going when we feel challenged. In our workout, we learned about the powerful YET! (I can’t ___ YET, but I CAN ____!) The GOTR Goal was: Use your YET shield to change your self-talk.

Questions and Conversation Starters

1. Tell me how to use the powerful YET!

2. How can we use positive self-talk at home?

Heart & Sole (2x a week) 

Lesson 5

In Lesson 5, the Big Idea was that we can use our strengths and supports to overcome obstacles.  After defining obstacles and strengths/supports, the girls participated in a workout where there were faced with obstacles towards achieving their lap goal for the day.  Some obstacles the girls were faced with include: waiting for three girls to pass them before they can run again, doing jumping jacks, and holding a plank.  Fortunately, the girls have strengths and supports to help them overcome these obstacles! The girls made choices about how and when to use these strengths and supports over the course of the workout.  At the end of the lesson, the girls reflected in their journal about their own strengths and supports that they feel can help them when they face internal and external obstacles in their life.  They also shared the areas of their Girl Wheel where they feel they might need more support when obstacles come their way.  The Take Home Challenge for this lesson was to ask someone how he or she reached an important goal, what obstacles they had to overcome and the strengths and supports they used to help them.

Questions and Conversation Starters:

1. Would you like to share some of the obstacles you wrote about in your journal? (Share some examples from your own life and how you overcame them.)

2. Let’s talk about some strengths and supports we have in our Girl Wheel (Brain, Body, Heart, Spirit, and Social).

Lesson 6

The Big Idea in Lesson 6 was: pressing pause can help us know how best to move forward.  Pressing pause is a challenging, yet important, skill that teaches girls to think before they act.  The girls learned that there are several pause strategies they can use, such as emotional regulation, self-reflection, new information, and intervention.  Through role play, the girls tried out these pause strategies with a variety of situations.  They also practiced pausing in the Workout, where they were introduced to interval training.  The Take Home Challenge for this lesson was to practice pressing pause, especially in situations where they usually don’t.

Questions and Conversation Starters:

1. Tell me about some of the pause strategies you learned today. (emotional regulation, self-reflection, new information, and intervention)

2. Is there a time you wish you had pressed pause and thought about something before acting? (Share an example from your own life.)

3. Are there times we can press pause at home more?  Brainstorm some ideas together.

Heart & Sole 

Lesson 3

The Big Idea for Lesson 3 was setting goals is SMART.  Today we taught girls to make SMART goals—the H&S way. In H&S, SMART is an acronym that describes how to set goals: a goal should be Specific, Measurable, Achievable, and Rewarding, and there must be enough Time to complete it. The first Activity (to get a ball across the finish line) showed that even seemingly impossible goals are reachable with some planning and teamwork.

In the Workout, they set their first lap goals by making them SMART. Finally, in the Journal, they set a personal goal for the season in their Girl Wheel.

Their Take Home Challenge for this lesson was to work on their Girl Wheel SMART Goal.

Questions & Conversation Starters:

1. How can setting SMART goals help us reach our goals? (Share your thoughts or an example from your life.)

2. What goal did you set in your Girl Wheel? Can I help you?

3. Share some important goals in your life and how you’ve reached them, as well as obstacles you have encountered along the way.

4. KEEP MOVING: Set a SMART goal to train for the 5K using the Heart & Sole Tracker with your girl! For example, you can set a goal to move together for one day or for multiple days each week.