Feelings and Flowing LInes


After a couple of week s break, we were all very glad to catch up. We started  with greeting and acknowledging everyone s presence. In the last session, after a craftwork, we had asked children how they feel. We observed it was a difficult question for them to reflect on, and with some hesitation, couple of them had responded with words like “good” and “nice” etc. We planned to work on the vocabulary around feelings a little bit more, and did an activity in which there were faces depicting different emotions. 


Sheets were of three different colors- Green, Yellow and Red. These translates to zones of regulation. Green zone is where we feel “good” and “Nice” but these are not feelings themselves. Which feelings makes us feel “good”? Probably, happiness, excitement, confidence, curiosity, peacefulness etc. Yellow sheet is for the yellow zone - where it starts getting difficult. Bored, annoyed, frustrated, confused, shy, morose, melancholy, nervous etc.  Red is where we are out of control. Anger, Sadness, Frightened, Mad etc. Being able to recognise and name these emotions is the first step to relishing them and managing them, and expressing them in healthy ways.

                                




Children were given cards with names of these emotions and asked to point the face which express that emotion. Sometimes they quickly pointed out the right faces, (Human mind has different sensitivities towards different emotions) sometimes they were confused. However we all enjoyed this activity.


Then we set aside the sheets to go into the main activity of the day. We wanted to explore with the kids how dots can be joined to form lines. As a first step we all set out to form the largest straight line we can make with all available objects in the room. Children gleefully ran around to collect everything that they had, and finally when things were exhausted, we used our bodies to elongate the line further. Super fun it was! Also what a way to bring our body into the awareness that we do not exist outside the solution, but we are part of it!


Next was another activity exploring the connection between a single dot and lines. Large emperor sheets were used for this activity and they were told a story about a dot who went for a walk. Next, children were given a piece of charcoal to depict this journey of a dot. Initially they refused, they wanted to draw fairies and unicorns. We tried a bit to prod them to let go of these conventional forms and try free drawing, but they resisted. Finally salvin said, OK draw what you like, I am going to draw my dot s journey. As salvin s dot climbed mountains and jumped across lakes and took huge strides in the sky, the children couldnt resist joining in and then it was a celebration of free hand drawing!




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