News from Preps & Year 1

Mental Health Week

Prep

The Prep students learned about mental health and what we can do to when our minds feel uncomfortable with thoughts. We discussed many strategies to keep our minds healthy and chose an activity to practice emotional regulation. Some students chose to be outside and engaging in physical play. Others chose to do a quiet activity outside, drawing positive pictures in chalk. While some students decided that they feel better indoors when they are relaxing, drawing or building. Common feedback after this activity was that their minds felt happy, calm and ready to learn! 

Year 1

Year 1C had a lot of fun learning all about the Zones of Regulation, a curriculum designed to foster self-regulation and emotional control. Students talked about how they feel in varied situations and how to deal with all these big feelings! Students then had the opportunity to teach each other how to represent a feeling in Auslan (Australian Sign Language). After, they brainstormed how to regulate certain feelings and make themselves feel calm, safe, and ready to learn. 

In Year 1G, to celebrate World Mental Health Day, we spoke about the different emotions we may feel. Using the Zones of Regulation, we categorised the emotions into the 4 colours (red, yellow, blue and green) and discussed why we may feel each way. We then learnt how to state each emotion using AUSLAN signs, and chose some signs to integrate into our daily routines. After identifying different emotions, we then looked at a lot of tools that students can use to help them return to the green zone. Students enjoyed practicing each tool in pairs. To end the learning, students created a puzzle piece that stated a tool they can use when they were in the blue, yellow and red Zones. This created a beautiful display of their learning. Well done 1G!

This week in year 1W, we celebrated World Mental Health Day by learning about our emotions. When we can understand what we are feeling, if we are not feeling good (Green Zone) we learnt some strategies to change this. To have a daily reminder each child made a puzzle piece for one of the zones to create a display. Some of the strategies we can use to get back to the Green Zone are having a drink of water, mindful colouring – patterns help to calm us and dancing – movement breaks.