Learning to express and identify emotions is one of the first steps to self regulation and empathy yet it can be over looked with the expectation for children to know and understand their emotions with little or no guidance . In this blog I have teamed up with @tinkertrayplay and @little.munchkins.early.years to look at how we can use their @littlecoachhouse emotions flash cards and play dough along side my book Conker the chameleon to take the first vital steps towards social emotional learning through bookish play.
It has long been believed that children learn best through play and when engaged with the subject matter. The emotions cards can easily be teamed with Conker the chameleon as you follow his journey through a range of feelings. Ask your little one what he might be feeling on each page and then identify the emotions card to fit. Have a talk about why he might be feeling like he is and when they might feel similar. There are also pages at the back that you can help them reflect on their own emotions such as the my chaMEleon tree.
Re -visit the emotions you have talked about throughout the week by reflecting what they could be feeling, ‘I can see you are cross that we can’t stay at the park longer, what can we do when we get home to help you feel better?’ It is also ok to model your own emotions and your own coping strategies,(we are all human) ‘mummy knows she is a bit tired and grumpy today, I’m going to have a bath and early night tonight so I feel better tomorrow.’
You can then reinforce what you have learned with other social emotional exploration activities. Children are often at the peak of their learning capacity when it is multi sensory, adding play dough to your social emotional learning is a perfect way to do this. Play dough is so tactile, it can be stress relieving and allows the focus to be directed somewhere else. Once again you can use the emotion cards and copy the emotions by laying the play dough over the cards to depict the feeling, alternativly draw a circle on paper and get them to come up with their own play dough expression (you can also print free resources for activity such as this with a simple internet search). You could also link different colour play dough to feelings. I use the zones of regulation in my book, associating colour with feelings can add another level of understanding but also a creative alternative for self expression when sometimes the feelings could be difficult to vocalise.
Do let us know if you incorporate any of these ideas into your bookish play and make sure you look out this week on social media for our give away when we all team up together for you to win all the prizes mentioned in this blog.
#bookishplay
#playblog
#conkerthechameleon
#multisensoryplay
#emotionflashcards
#childrensbooks
#socialemotionalplay
#eyteachers
#receptionclass
#childrensmentalwellbeing
#childrensmentalhealth
This fantastic Guest Blog is brought to you by Hannah Peckham, young persons counsellor and author of Conker the Chameleon. Follow her at @h.j.peckham