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.