During our feelings unit in The Friends Room we talked about our feelings and how we express them. We explored a variety of emotions and were able to come up with strategies to cope with varying degrees of emotion.
In The Friends Room, we rate our feelings on a scale of 1-5. A five is the greatest intensity. For example, if we don’t see our name on the job chart one day, we may be a little upset (2), but if a friend takes our toy, we may be very angry (5).
Our strategies for regulating our emotions include:
1. Taking a deep breath
2. Squeezing our hands together
3. Rubbing our legs
We have also talked about what it means to be a good friend. After role-play scenarios surrounding play, everyone in The Friends Room agreed upon the importance of always including friends. If we tell someone they can’t play, or someone doesn’t include us in their play, we can get very upset. We agreed on how important it is to play with all our friends in The Friends Room.
The following activities have been spread out amongst the AM and PM sessions.
We have been working on:
-Taking turns
-Making friendly choices
-Regulating our emotions
During meeting time The Friends Room has been:
-Practicing for the school sing
-Talking about how to regulate our emotions
-Role-playing scenarios to practice making friendly choices
-Playing emotions charades
-Describing feelings and what might make us feel that way
-Putting on puppet shows to illustrate how we can be friendly and how we can invite friends to play with us on the playground
During activity time The Friends Room has been:
-Finishing our bodies project
-Decorating snowflakes
-Color mixing with liquid watercolors
-Playing alphabet bingo
-Using sequencing cards to learn how to sequence (first, next, last)
-Patterning (AB and ABC patterns)
-Playing categorizing games
-Drawing our favorite thing about winter
-Making holiday gifts for our families
-Working in small groups to make to make a Friends Room Christmas tree, dreidel, snowman and snowflake
-Making potato latkes and holiday cookies
-Marble painting
-Playing in our water table
-Using dry erase boards to draw and practice writing our names
-Decorating gingerbread people
The Friends Room has been singing:
The Sleepy Train Song
Our Holiday Songs for the school sing
I’m a Little Snowman
Snowy Pokey
Snow Is Falling All Around
The Friends Room has read:
Blueberries for Sal by Robert McCloskey
When Sophie Gets Angry—Really, Really Angry by Molly Bang
The Christmas Crocodile by Bonny Becker
Today I Feel Silly: And Other Moods That Make My Day by Jamie Lee Curtis and Laura Cornell
Hurry Santa! by Julie Sykes
Chanukah Lights Everywhere by Michael J. Rosen and Melissa Iwai
Sometimes I Feel Like a Storm Cloud by Lezlie Evans
Eight Candles to Light: A Chanukah Story by Jonny Zucker
Lyrics:
The Sleepy Train Song
Train whistle blowing,
makes a sleepy noise
underneath the blankets,
go all the girls and boys
Rockin rollin riding
all around the bay
all bound for morning town
many miles away
*{Insert child’s name}
{Lauren’s} at the engine
{Chelsea} rings the bell
{Catherines} swings the lantern, to show that all is well
Somewhere it is raining
Where this train will ride
But all the little passengers are safe and warm inside
Rockin, rollin, riding
All around the bay
All bound for morning town
Many miles away
Snow is Falling all Around
(Sung To: "Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star")
Snow is falling all around,
Falling, falling, to the ground.
I catch snowflakes on my tongue.
Building snowmen is such fun.
Snow is falling all around
Falling, falling, to the ground.
Snowey Pokey
You put your right mitten in,
You take your right mitten out,
You put your right mitten in and you shake it all about.
You do the Snowey pokey and you turn yourself around.
That's what it's all about.
You put your left mitten in
You put your scarf in
You put your right boot in
You put your left boot in
You put your hat in
You put your snowself in
Etc
I'm a Little Snowman
(Sung to: "I'm a Little Teapot")
I'm a little snowman short and fat.
Here is my scarf and here is my hat.
When the snow is falling come and play.
Build a snowman every day.
