Over the course of the month of May the children have endeavoured in an array of experiences that have assisted and supported the children in building on their self regulation of their emotions. The children have engaged in an Emotions project using the Shankers 5 steps to emotional regulation. They have learnt and explored vital skills in understanding and managing big emotions whilst giving the children examples and strategies on how to deal with their emotions and others.

Throughout the whole of May the educators have incorporated a variety of open and closed ended conversations to prompt the children’s thinking and knowledge whilst also encouraging them to voice their opinions and thoughts to their peers and educators. The educators have observed and utilised intentional teaching moments within the environment to use as examples to the children in this topic of focus. Each room has ensured they have a quiet space within their indoor and outdoor environment each day to provide the children with a calming corner to regulate themselves in, and have a moment of solitude play if needed.

Each of the rooms have been exploring a wide range of ways and reasons on why and how to self regulate your emotions and deal with them in a calming and respectful manner towards their peers and educators.

Some of these experiences and activities have consisted of small group creative arts experiences, where the children have been encouraged to paint their own or one of their peers self portraits with the face expression of what and how they were feeling at the time. After completing these portraits the educators used this as an intentional teaching moment through open and closed ended conversations. This was to enhance the children’s confidence and ability to verbally express their emotions and why they may be feeling like that through open ended conversations and questions.

The educators have also watched a variety of short videos and read through a selection of books that go into further detail and provide the children with visual pictures and information on ways to manage their emotions.

The children have built on their emotions through small and large group games where they have been encouraged to work together as a team or within partnership with their peers. This has given the children the opportunity to develop their social skills and deal with their emotions as working as a team can be quite challenging at this age and cause conflicts and distress within children.

The educators have also been utilising transition times throughout the day to build on the children’s knowledge and skills. For example, some of the rooms have been encouraging the children to voice how they are feeling at the time of transition. If the children are feeling happy, then the educators would emphasise how great that is followed by the question “Why are you feeling so happy?”. The children would then stand up in the middle of the group and express their emotions with confidence (if they wanted to). If the children expressed that they were feeling sad, angry, frustrated etc, then the educator’s would ask the child why they were feeling this way and what we could do to assist and support them to help them to feel better and manage these strong emotions. If the child seemed a hug or comfort in any way then they were able to gain this before transitioning to the next step in their routine for the day.

All of the rooms have also ensured that each day they have incorporated a quiet rest time with an array of choices for the children to engage within. These rest time activities have consisted of things such as, yoga, mindfulness and breathing, quiet reading, quiet table top activities, listening to the singing bowl or even just simply lying down to calm their minds and bodies.
This has been done at the end of each day to assist the children in calming their minds and helping to self regulate themselves to reset for the rest of the day.

Commencing as of June we will begin focusing on our next chapter in the preschool program which is for the children to engage within experiences aimed at recognising and writing their name, both first and last name. This in turn will assist them in prewriting skills and ensuring they hold their pencil in the correct pincer grip.
The children will also focus on developing autonomy and a sense of responsibility towards their belongings. Educators will be actively instructing the children in caring for and respecting their belongings through packing away their bags, making their beds and cleaning up after mealtimes. These routine and transition times will be used as intentional teaching for the children to develop responsibility towards their belongings as they will need to do this at Big School.