Embracing Wellness at Winsor During Wellness Week

For most schools, the week of January 30th is just a normal week in winter. But for Winsor, it’s when the annual Wellness Week took place this year. Wellness Week is a week dedicated to running a variety of wellness-related activities for the entire school to participate in, both to help students incorporate wellness into their daily lives and to help students have fun and relax. This year, Wellness Club (WC) especially wished to emphasize the intersectionality of Wellness and physical health, education, and creativity.

On Monday, WC had the opportunity to run an Upper School assembly, where we ran “Singo,” a combination between bingo and singing. Singo has essentially the same concept as bingo, except that students can cross off boxes on their Singo sheet only if they recognize the song being played. Soon after the activity began, Singo became an all-school sing-along session, starting Wellness Week off on a joyful note.

On Tuesday, students could exercise their creative juices by making friendship bracelets in the Library. By the end of the day, the library tables were strewn with yarn and tape, but the messiness was a sure sign that students thoroughly made use of the materials and got the chance to have fun making bracelets.

On Wednesday, there was an Upper School movie lunch where students watched the movie Inside Out and ate snacks. Inside Out is a movie involving a girl and the five core emotions she feels on a daily basis: Joy, Sadness, Anger, Fear, and Disgust. The meaning behind this light-hearted movie perfectly tied into the themes of Wellness Week.

On Thursday, WC collaborated with the Wellness Committee of the Student Equity Board (SEB). The SEB Wellness Committee invited Dr. Pincus, a world renowned child psychiatrist, to present on stress-management. Dr. Pincus explained anxiety from a more biological perspective and led the entire Upper School in interactive anxiety management exercises. 

On Friday, Jackson, a therapy dog, was invited into Winsor. Jackson, an adorable black lab, was brought in by Dr. Marion Russell ‘91,‘ P’23, ’25. Jackson cuddled and played with many students, and he certainly helped to incorporate some good natured fun and relaxation into the day!

Overall, Wellness Week was very successful! The goal of this week is not to completely eradicate stress, or radically change students’ mindsets, but instead to bring some more fun into the school day, and educate students about wellbeing in general.