Emotions Part 4

To start this lesson we continued with identifying feelings and how they look. They wanted the kids to draw facial expressions on the pictures provided. Since this is sometime I plan on doing until my last child is in Kindergarten, I laminated the pictures and they drew on it with wet erase markers. I thought that idea was so smart.
The kids enjoyed doing this. I'm not sure why Hailey is holding the marker funny. From the very beginning of her using writing instruments, she has held it correctly.

Then we talked about honesty again and sang a song. Hailey still doesn't get the concept and Luc couldn't figure out why we would talk about it again. Then I told them three fun things we were going to do and talked about how sad they would feel if I was being dishonest. So, we first made pigs in a blanket. They ate them while I did puppet shows and flannel board stories. To finish off the lesson, they made their own stick puppets.

Chloe was home by this time so she got the extra pigs in a blanket and made a puppet too.

Hailey did a great job drawing a circle for the face and putting on hair, a nose, and mouth.

Emotions Part 3

This lesson focused more on how do we handle being mad or sad.

First we acted out what we do when we feel a certain way, like crying when we are sad. Then we talked about what we can do to get the mad feelings out of us. Hailey stomps around and throws her hands around if they are empty. She acts like she's going to hit someone but half the time she doesn't.

Then we read "Where the Wild Things Are" by M. Sendak. The only copy of this at the library had a tape to it. So, they got to hear the story being read by someone different. I like having books with tapes because it's hard to be talking constantly.

After that, I did puppet shows to demonstrate good and bad ways to handle our feelings. The main point of the show was that we should talk about and through our feelings. This is very difficult for Hailey since she just doesn't understand yet what her feelings are. We have a little girl in nursery that when she doesn't get her way, yells "I'm MAD!" and puts herself in timeout. When I first saw this, I thought it was the strangest thing ever but I realize that being able to express this is very mature for her age. I don't think even most adults can do that.

Then we sang a song about being honest and true.

Finally, after all this talking, Hailey and Luc made faces. I had brads to put through the lips so we can turn the face around to be happy or sad. Then we sang "If you Chance to Meet a Frown".

Emotions Part 2

This lesson is supposed to correlate with their Halloween Party and since I'm not ready to go into detail about Halloween we didn't do the witch art project or the party which was the bulk of the lesson.



We had a short lesson reviewing what different emotions we can have. Then I told a story about Josh's Feelings. The story was about all the different emotions that we went through before and during the Halloween Party at Joy School. Hailey love stories but these concepts of understand what she is feeling is above her.



Then we finished with a quick visit from a puppet to talk about how everyone has different feelings and it's okay to feel however they feel.



Tomorrow we are going into the feeling of anger and what to do about it. I'm interested in how Hailey will use this. The one thing I really like about Joy School is that these concepts are about of daily life and are easy to bring them up again throughout the day. So, for the rest of the day, I tried to point out to Hailey when she was acting frustrated or angry. I asked her how she was feeling and generally she answered "I don't know."

Emotions, Honesty, and Pumpkins

Today we started Unit 3A: Joy of Realness, Honesty and Candor. This is also the time in the lessons where doing things ahead of schedule is tough. These lessons are supposed to be done around Halloween so there is Halloween activities integrated into them. I'm going to be skipping over unit 4 and put it at the end because it is all about Christmas.

So, this lesson starts with pictures of different facial expressions and scenarios to each one. We talked about what makes us angry, happy, scared, excited, and surprised. Then we sang "I've Got Joy". Hailey loves this song and one day I will record her singing it because it is so cute. Surprisingly this song also helps me relax more after I sing it. I think it has something to do with acting like your happy will eventually make you feel happy.

Then we talked about facial expressions with a pumpkin and learned a little song about how to make a jack-o-lantern. (In this lesson, they have them make real jack-o-lanterns from real pumpkins. I'm not sure if I'm even ready to let Luc do that on his own. When pumpkins do start showing up, we'll just paint them instead.)

After that, I read a story "Isabel's Little Lie." Luc is defiantly old enough to understand what a lie is but Hailey doesn't really get it. In the introduction package it talked about how we aren't teaching the children honesty but trying to preserve what they naturally do. It's from adults that they learn to lie mainly out of fear.

So, to finish off, I let them glue on faces to make paper jack-o-lanterns.
Luc wanted to cut out his all by himself. He did a great job. The best I've seen yet. It had big problems with his mouth but other then that he stayed in the lines.

Hailey did the gluing and pasting all by herself. (When we first started Joy School, Hailey wanted a lot of unnecessary help so I'm glad she's over that.)

Also, this is the best I've seen Hailey do by herself. The eyes, nose, and mouth are facing the correct way and are lined up nicely. This hardly happens. (I helped with the stem and pointed out which one was the nose, but that was it.) I'm very proud of both of them.