Children’s Mental Health Week

As part of the National Children’s Mental Health Week, all rooms decided to choose a colour from the Inside Out movie as their theme for their Family learning event.

 This linked into children learning about their emotions, and to help children understand that all feelings are equal. 

Baby room chose the colour yellow. They had lots of yellow resources available to represent the emotion Happy. They used resources that would help to promote a happy and healthy wellbeing, for example – yellow balloons to encourage babies to reach, stretch, chase and grab. As physical exercise helps to promote wellbeing. There was yellow custard powder for a sensory activity that babies explored by squeezing, poking and enjoying the tactile feel and help relieve stress. There were also bees and flowers to remind us of spring and summer times when the weather is brighter and more cheerful. 

Tweenies chose the colour purple for Fear activities. They had sensory bags to touch and feel. There were boxes to explore for ‘what’s in the box’, and purple rice for mark making. Children went fishing in shredding and they cut purple vegetables. They also had fun on an insect hunt! 

Children in Pre-school and Butterflies have been discussing emotions, in particular Angry, Anxious and Happy. For their learning event they decorated ginger bread people with different coloured emotions. They made stress balls as a way of dealing with anxiety. Our aim was to open and create ways for children to be able to express and communicate feelings. 

We introduced the Colour Monster book and had the matching puppets.

These resources have been shared with parents as part of the home learning to support their children to share emotions.