Journaling - a form of mindfulness (older group) 

I wish I had more pictures from today, but the truth is, we were so involved in our work, we didn’t want to stop to go and get an iPad! 
Having learnt a lot about neuroplasticity (ask the children what this means - you’ll be impressed!) today was about giving the brain a break. We didn’t use the word mindfulness until the end as it tends to put them off. We explored the concept of journaling and took advantage of the nice weather to spend the whole session outside with a journal and some art materials. They were asked to find something that interested them, to study it, and to spend a good amount of time journaling it in whatever way they wanted to. When we found what we now know to be a cinnabar moth, the children were completely captured and had to be encouraged to leave it to go in for lunch. Throughout the process, language such as calm, relaxed, total enjoyment were the key words used to describe their feelings. And that’s when we introduced this as a mindfulness concept. 
Next time you go for a walk, nurture group highly recommend taking a journal and some art materials with and making a record of what you find!

Early Warning Signs

Today we recognised what happens to our bodies when we start to experience strong emotions. We acted them out, considered real life experiences when these might or have occurred and then made chatterboxes to focus on what strategies we could do when we experience these strong emotions. 
 

This week, the older group looked at the story 'The Bad Seed'. We looked at the reasons behind the seed's decisions to be bad, and the group unanimously felt that the seed was wasting it's life and should make better choices. The children were able to relate this to real life examples and the discussions had were incredibly high level. We were so impressed!

The children then planted their own seeds (which they named) that they will look after as they grow over the next few weeks.

The younger group took the opportunity of being in the Studio yesterday and they baked cupcakes which looked and smelt delicious. 

Today we focused on regulation activities and the children are starting to identify which they have a preference for. With the older group, we explored ways of slowing our breathing down to feel calmer.

The older children continued their work on WoBbLe using this as a strategy when they have strong feelings around an upcoming event. 
The younger children worked on goal setting and identifying small steps that could help them achieve their goals. 

Regulation Activities continued

Today we built on last week’s session thinking about how we can respond when we feel strong emotions and we have the chance to behave in an antisocial way, what other choices we have. We read the story ‘Even Superheroes Have Bad Days’, created our own superheroes and discussed what they did on a bad day and how that affected others or not. 
 

Indi said when her superhero has a bad day, they frown or cry or sigh and then they breathe and it doesn’t affect anyone else if they do that. 
 

Someone else said when her superhero has a bad day, they might scream or shout but if they don’t do it very much then hopefully others will understand how they feel.

We then created comfort cards and made a key ring for them. We will keep them in our pencil boxes and share them with our teachers if we have that feeling and need 5 minutes to re-regulate. 

Regulation activities

Today we took part in a variety of activities to help us regulate. We identified which ones we liked best and how calming we found them. 
 

Rosie’s Glasses

After reading the story ‘Rosie’s Glasses’, a story book without any words, where the pictures tell the story of how Rosie uses her glasses to focus on the positive things around her, we used our own glasses to see the more positive things in life. The children engaged so well with this and noticed things they had never noticed before. 

Today we have been learning about gremlin beliefs:

Me

Them

Always

Catastrophising

We talked about how these beliefs can cloud our feelings when something happens and practised how to turn these beliefs around.

What the children said the found useful about nurture group:

“When I do my work in here I can concentrate more.” Raphie W

“It is loud in the classroom and the lessons are constant so nurture gives me a break. It has boosted my confidence by talking to new people.” Rupey

“It’s quieter in nurture, which helps me.” Charlotte

“It gives me a break from the classroom.” Aiden

13/10/22

We had a busy session today, so busy we forgot to take photos. Today we followed a recipe to make play dough for a sensory based activity, as well as using problem solving skills to work out what to do when the play dough became too runny when we were overexcited in our approach to adding in the food colouring. We also made puzzles with positive messages. As there was a birthday in our group today, we had a special treat for snack and all enjoyed talking about how we celebrate birthdays at home. Lots of children were commenting how they enjoy Thursdays because they know they have nurture group.

“The group is fun and it helps me as I can go around and do my learning, I don’t have to sit down and do it for a long time.” (Rupey)

“Nurture group helps me as It is calmer in here and less noisy. I like the activities we do.” (Charlotte)

Today we worked on perseverance. We practised cutting and carving fruit for printing and talked about the feelings created when things are difficult or don’t go to plan. As well as completing work, we made zones of regulation tubes and ate tea cakes for snack time.