Children's Mental Health Week

Inside Out: Guessing the feelings.

Inside Out beautifully identifies the different feelings. The film is a great place to start talking about mental health.

Nursery children learned about the importance of being outside, and how time spent in nature is good for our mental health.

We go to camp every Monday and Friday, and play outside every day.

We also tried some yoga! And shared a book about feelings. We talked about sharing our worries, and how to cope with big feelings through exercise and breathing techniques.

Reception

In Reception, we have been talking about what positive mental health looks like and we have been learning about our different feelings. We talked about how everyone experiences the feeling of anger, sadness, stress and worry. It’s normal and it’s ok! - but having good mental health is being able to bounce back from these setbacks or feelings and finding ways to feel calm, content and happy. We have been finding ways that we can independently help ourselves to find a resolution and remain calm and ready to move forward with our day. Here are some of the ways we can regain a sense of calm and clarity:-

Calm breathing
Mindful breathing
Mindful colouring
Hugging - a soft toy or a trusted friend
Playing
Being outdoors

Year One

We read the story "A Huge Bag of Worries" by Virginia Ironside and thought about what to do if we are feeling worried. We talked about how sharing our worries are key to letting them go, otherwise we carry them around with us. We also talked about who we would share them with.

Children's Book: The Huge Bag of Worries

Author: Virginia Ironside Illustrated by: Frank Rodgers Read by: Jay Thomas Wherever Jenny goes, her worries follow her - in a big blue bag. They are there when she goes swimming, when she is watching TV, and even when she is in the lavatory. Jenny decides they will have to go.

The children then wrote down and shared their top worries with their friends.

Our worry tree

Year Two making connection chains

We thought about the people and groups around us who we connected with. Some of our ideas included family, friends, clubs, school and pets. We drew pictures of them on strips of paper and made them into connection chains.

Year Two self portraits

We used chalk to celebrate ourselves. Our self portraits look amazing outside our classroom!

Year Two - The power in me

We learned the actions to this song. We thought the words were great for connecting us together

The Invisible String by Patrice Karst Illustrated by Joanne Lew-Vriethoff

Year 3 used the story The Invisible String to explore connections with important people. We drew our own invisible strings to the people we love and are connected to.

Year 3 explored the connection that they have with themselves and others

Year 5 - Taking care of our mental health

In year 5 we talked about mental health and why it is important to talk about it. We looked at different techniques that we can use to improve our mental health when we are feeling sad or angry. We practised mindfulness and breathing techniques such as square breathing.

(Pictures to follow)