Welcome to Wellbeing Wednesday! What an amazing way to start…… A huge congratulations to you all for the amazing work you have done since Friday. I cannot believe how many photos you have sent in. Be warned! This is THE longest celebration post ever!
Children’s mental Health week 2021
Today we are having a full day of well-being activities and challenges as part of Children’s Mental Health Week. The theme this year is ‘Express yourself’ so read on to see what exciting activities you can take part in. You may remember that I put a link to this website on Monday’s blog. Many of the activities are from this site. If you don’t want to complete them all today, you can of course, do them whenever you choose to. Do remember to upload your photos to Evidence Me or email them as we love to see what you are doing. Hopefully the activities are the same or similar to siblings in other year groups so that you can all do them together.
Self-expression is a great way to free your mind. It is about finding creative ways to share feelings, thought and ideas through doing things that make you feel good. Share something that you enjoy doing and makes you feel good. I love being out in nature and going for long walks – whatever the weather. I also really enjoy gardening and growing things. The clip below shows some of the different things that make us feel good.
Activity 1
This is quite easy – it is take a photo of yourself wearing your brightest clothing – that’s right, really express yourself!
Sometimes wearing bright colours can really cheer us up can’t it, especially as we are still in the middle of wintertime.
Activity 2
Another way to ‘Express yourself’ is to create a self-portrait. You can do this in any way you choose; paints, felt-tips, pencil crayons, collage, you choose! If you can upload a photo of your portrait when it is completed, we can post some on the class blog and you can try and guess who’s who. Here are just a few ideas to help you.
Activity 3
Try the Squiggle challenge.
Now you know what to do, have a go at creating your own squiggle drawing. What will you end up with?
Activity 4
If you would rather make something than draw something, have a go at making this cute origami dog then give him a name!
How could you personalise you dog? Add some googly eyes maybe if you have some, or use some sparkly glitters or anything else that you can find.
Activity 5
You will need some of your family or your classmates to join in.
Imagine you have been stranded on a desert island. (Don’t worry a ship comes to rescue you later). You have to use your imagination to share these ideas and take turns to listen to everyone else’s ideas.
What did you find out? Were your ideas the same or different to everyone else’s? Remember it is ok to express yourself differently.
Activity 6
It’s really important to be able to express ourselves to people that we trust so that they can help us understand our feelings. Have a look at these emotion cards.
Talk about the different emotions with someone else. Have you ever felt like this? Can you remember when? What was happening? What do you think happened to make you feel this way? Who were you with? Where were you? What did you do?
Grown ups – this is just an opportunity to explore with your child their understanding of these emotions. Can they identify when they might have felt this way? Do they understand what it is to be embarrassed or confused? As with everything, your child is building up their vocabulary and this is crucial for them to be able to express themselves. Often children appear to have ‘tantrums’ or ‘strops’ but this can be because they are frustrated at not being able to express themselves. Introducing new vocabulary and making sure they understand what it means and how to use it can really help. Another way to help is to discuss feelings and actions in the stories you read. This helps them put those words and feelings in to context and can help them see any consequences resulting from actions because of those feelings.
Storytime
I thought it would be good to finish with a story. Reading is another one of my favourite activities which helps me feel good. This one seems very appropriate as Brandesburton pupils have kindness as their superpower!
Have a fantastic day and I can’t wait to see all of your pictures and videos.
Mrs Atkinson