IB unit "How we express ourselves". Our feelings and emotions.

At early age, it is important for children to learn how to adjust and control their emotions, but not to hide and not to suppress them in any way. It is important for children to understand that it is normal to feel all emotions, but they must learn to express them without hurting others. There are no "good" or "bad" emotions, there are only appropriate and inappropriate behaviours when emotions occur. As a result, after talking and getting to know the various arising emotions, the "Universa Via" children did various interesting tasks. They made an "anti-stress toy" - after filling simple balloons with starch and some groats, they tied them. Children kneaded it, pressed it, and pinched it, especially when they felt anxious or experienced other feelings. That action directed their attention and their tension to the soft “anti-stress toy”. At that time, children talked anger, how it feels to be angry, and how to behave when angry.

Children also learned a poem about the rules of anger: "When things start to get annoying, you can sulk, cry and vent your frustration. But at the end, after the sobbing, you need to calm down, wipe your nose and hug your friend."

Another activity that children really liked was the light table. They willingly played, experimented with various bulk products (sand, rice, coffee). The little ones enjoyed playing with animals on the table, creating various fairy tales and acting out. 

A beautiful and valuable task was to make a beaded bracelet, at the same time giving each friend a compliment, a kind word, hugging and wishing each other to have a great friendly end of the day. But the most important thing was that the little ones did not forget that they must be friendly and tolerant to each other. During the unit, we developed kids’ emotional management and social skills and enriched the vocabulary of emotions.