With Valentine’s Day on the horizon, we were inspired to spend this week practicing kindness, compassion and consideration, in an effort to understand our own and other people’s emotions, promoting some extra love and care among our community! Children explored different types of kind and generous gestures to make others feel special, appreciated and supported. Some of these were material gestures in the form of handmade gifts, cards and bunches of foliage foraged from the forest. Others were in the form of words, as we discussed how to use “kind and gentle words” and tell others what we like about them or send friendly messages to others using different forms of technology. We also considered what a kind action may be, such as helping someone up if they fall, sharing resources, and offering to help. Each time we witnessed a kind act or gesture, the child who had showed kindness was invited to choose a heart to add to our ‘Kindness Tree’, which is now blooming with colour and love.
Possibly the most important thing we tried to do all week was be observant and sensitive of how others might be feeling, so we tried out different facial expressions and guessed what they might tell us about someone’s emotions. At circle times we talked about how we could support and respond to these differing emotions. The Zones of Regulation were a recurring feature of our activities as a result of this, as we talked about a huge range of emotions that can be roughly sorted into green, blue, yellow and red categories to help children identify how they feel and how to help themselves. On Wednesday, for example, Liaden led a mark-making activity in which children used watercolour paints to spray handprints onto paper, inspired by ancient cave paintings found in Europe and South America. By the end of the activity there was a great rainbow of hands, representing the huge range of emotions we might feel in just one day, or even just one hour!
While we cared for ourselves and each other we also made every effort to recognise our physical feelings and how they might affect us emotionally. We reminded ourselves and each other to ask: ‘Am I cold? Am I thirsty? Do I need to use the toilet? Do I need to rest?’ Sometimes children worked out that something was bothering them physically, so they asked for help or solved the problem independently - an important lesson for all of us!
Whether you celebrate Valentine’s Day or not, everyone at Little Forest Folk Wimbledon Village wishes you a Friday - and every other day - full of love, kindness and compassion!
Little Forest Folk
Wimbledon Village