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Pre-SATS Body Scan Relaxing Meditation

April 25, 2017 By Zoe Ross

Mind-Moose-Relaxing-Meditation-Pre-SATSWe know that SATs can be an anxious time for some children (and teachers and parents!). So Zoe has recorded a free audio for you to use with your children.

It’s a relaxing body scan mindful mediation that is just over 3 minutes long. Our chief year 6 testers said it helped them to feel a lot calmer!

We hope it helps – good luck!

Click to download

Filed Under: Free resources Tagged With: children, free resources, ks2, mediation, mental health, parents, primary, SATs, wellbeing

Children’s Mental Health Week Kindness Quotes and Slogans Activity

February 9, 2017 By Zoe Ross

Kindness-Matters
Suitability
This activity can be used for any age pupil but can be easily adapted for younger pupils by providing different sentence starters for children to use to help them come up with their own quotes.

Overview
This activity asks pupils to create a slogan or quote about kindness and being kind to others. It encourages children to think about what the definition of kindness is and how this can relate to other people. It helps them to think about acts of kindness.

Introduction

  • Ask pairs of pupils to think about what kindness means to them.
  • Discuss as a class and decide on a definition.
  • Share some of the ways that kindness can be shown? E.g. kindness can be an action, a small action, which we make a choice to help somebody and make them feel better about themselves. It can have a big impact on people around us.

What does kindness look like?

  • Ask 2 pupils to come to the front and give them a toy to play with.
  • Prime one of the pupils to snatch the toy from the other.
  • Discuss how that felt.
  • Ask the pupils to model how playing with the toy with kindness might look in contrast.
  • If you wish, give a toy to all pairs to repeat.

Main

  • Show pupils some different quotes about kindness and acts of kindness. E.g.No act of kindness, no matter how small, is ever wasted. – Aesop.
  • Discuss as a class what these might mean.
  • Show pupils some different slogans about kindness. Discuss with the children what these might mean. E.g. Kindness can change the world. (An online search for ‘kindness quotes and slogans for children‘ returns many examples to use. And there are some more here.)
  • Ask pupils to think/pair/share what the difference is between a slogan and a quote?
  • A quote is a saying or a statement of somebody’s thoughts or opinions. A slogan is used by an organisation usually as a way of attracting attention. It is a phrase which is easily remembered.
  • Ask pupils to group different statements and phrases into quotes and slogans.
  • Invite them to identify and explain why they would be quotes or slogans and explain?

Creating a kindness quote or slogan

  • Give out appropriate materials and ask pupils to design their own quotes and/or slogans about kindness for a display in the classroom.
  • To help those who may struggle to come up with their own ideas, pupils could work in supportive groupings, use the quotes/slogans from the grouping activity or some sentence starters to help them.

Plenary

  • Ask pupils to stick their slogans and quotes on the wall and share as a class.
  • Discuss how they make them feel about kindness.
  • They could take some home to share.

Ideas for extension

  • Pupils could use their slogans/quotes and come up with a persuasive poster or letter to encourage the class (or another class) to be kind to others.

Filed Under: Free resources Tagged With: activities, children, Children's mental health week, english, free resources, kindness, ks2, KS2 activities

The importance of developing healthy self-esteem in children and young people

October 4, 2016 By Zoe Ross 2 Comments

the-importance-of-healthy-self-esteem-in-children-young-peopleHealthy self-esteem in children and young people is the topic of our first blog post to support teachers and parents looking to understand how they can help children with their well-being.

What is self-esteem?

Self-esteem is our opinion of our self and our worth. It’s our perception of our value as a person, particularly in regard to our work and achievements, our purpose in life, how we relate to others and our ability to stand on our own feet. Having healthy self-esteem means being comfortable with how we look and how we feel. It means feeling good about ourselves, our abilities and our thoughts.

Self-esteem is made up of all the experiences and relationships we’ve had in our lives. The people we encounter in our lives add to or, in some instances unforunately, take away from how we see ourselves and our level of self-esteem.

For children and young people, building self-esteem is an ongoing process and starts early. As parents and teachers, we don’t always get it right but as long as we remember to praise, listen and enforce boundaries in a positive way more often than not, we can help children and young people to develop healthy levels of self-esteem. P

What does healthy self-esteem look like?

Someone with positive self-esteem will generally approach things thinking they are a good person who deserves support and love and can succeed in life. Someone will low or negative self-esteem will generally think that they are not good at things, don’t deserve love or support and that situations will work out badly for them.

Children and young people with high self-esteem:

  • Have a positive view of themselves
  • Make friends easily and adapt to new situations
  • Can play on their own or in groups
  • Will try to work things out for themselves but are willing to ask if unsure
  • Can be proud of their achievements
  • Can admit their mistakes and learn from them
  • Are willing to try new things and adapt to change

A person with healthy self-esteem believes that they are doing the best they can. They accept that life isn’t perfect and rolls with the punches. They are comfortable with who they are and can get through things that don’t turn out the way they expected. Building resilience — the ability to adapt well to adversity, trauma, tragedy, threats or even significant sources of stress — can help our children manage stress and feelings of anxiety and uncertainty. We’ll be writing more on this in the future.

Why is healthy self-esteem particularly important for children and young people?

Young people with low self-esteem can find it very hard to cope with pressures from school, peers and society. The teenage, and increasingly pre-teen yearss can be very stressful as youngsters are expected to achieve good grades, look a certain way and be successful or popular. Children and young people with low self-esteem are more at risk of developing depression, anxiety, self-harming and other mental health problems as they grow up, and will often find the ups and downs of life in general harder to get through.

Most children and young people will have dips in self-esteem as they go through different stages and challenges. Starting or changing school, moving house, changes in the family can all affect a child’s self-esteem but with support they can get through this.

In conclusion, having healthy self-esteem helps children in many areas of their life. They have the courage to try new things, like making new friends. they believe in themselves and know that good things can happen when they try their best. Our next blog post will look at how we can help children and young people to develop healthy self-esteem.

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Filed Under: Moose Guides Tagged With: children, healthy self-esteem, parents, resilience, self-esteem, teachers, young people

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