KIA HAUORA TE HINENGARO Handy Actions
These might help you complete the Healthy Minds Block
- Get tamariki to draw or write about the people, places and memories that are special to them. Display these around the classroom.
- Create a compliments jar and ask tamariki to write compliments or notes of aroha to their friends, ensuring that no child misses out. Kaiako and other staff can do this too! It’s a nice idea to read these aloud at the end of the day or week.
- Create a gratitude wall in your service and/or staffroom – invite tamariki and staff to bring in photos or write down the things they are grateful for in their lives. It’s a nice visual reminder of the things that make us feel good, and hearing what other people are grateful for can help others see opportunities for gratitude in their own lives.
- Brainstorm qualities or things that are special about your service and/or whānau. From this, create your service whānau values – how do tamariki look out for one another, uplift one another and challenge each other to be the best they can be?
- Celebrate the different cultures within your early learning service (ELS) community – during language weeks, invite tamariki and kaiako of that culture to share their food, stories, beliefs and rituals.
- Get tamariki to research and explore the concept of wairua and spirituality and what it means in different cultures and/or communities.
- Take tamariki on a nature walk – ask them to be as quiet as possible and to listen to the sounds of the natural environment – the birds singing, leaves rustling etc.
- Have an exhibition where people contribute something that represents what wairua means for them. It may be something they create such as an artwork, a piece of music or just an object that symbolises wairua.
- Have a ‘random acts of kindness’ week and encourage the whole ELS community to look out for the people around them.
- Hold a reflection and goal setting session. Think about the things your service has collectively achieved, the things you’re proud of, the challenges you’ve overcome and the things you hope to achieve in the short and long term. This is a great exercise for kaiako and other ELS staff to do too!
- Ask tamariki to think about who they look up to and admire the most and why. What qualities do they like about that person and what can they learn from them? Kaiako might like to consider finding a mentor – someone they admire who can support, guide and encourage them through challenges and triumphs at mahi.
- Visit the Sparklers Page and plan to regularly use these activities.
- Help tamariki begin to identify their own character strengths, and engage in activities that allow them to use them on a regular basis. For tamariki who are nurturing, for example, have them water the plants around the ELS; have creative students help decorate a bulletin board.
- Connect with tamariki in caring ways and encourage them to connect with each other!
- If a child looks upset or unhappy, check him/her out by asking, “You seem down, are you OK? Do you want to talk about it?" Take the time to listen.
- Create experiences that bring about positive emotions during the day. Help tamariki explore and find activities that they love to do then support them to do these - whether it is reading, playing in the sandpit or with toys, helping others, art, music, or being physically active. When people engage in what they love to do, they feel good emotionally.
- Observe the tamariki for whom you are a primary carer. For each child, ask yourself, “Does he/she experience more positive emotions vs. negative emotions throughout the day?” What is their positivity ratio? Reach out to those who experience more negative emotions and come up with ways to increase their positive emotions.
- Help tamariki identify activities that result in joy or other positive emotions and encourage them to do these activities when they are not feeling well emotionally.
- When reading books during mat time, make a point to talk about how the characters did things to take care of their mental health, such as talking about feelings, doing healthy and enjoyable activities, and being kind to others. Also tune into ways in which they demonstrated positive coping strategies, such as thinking positive and doing calming strategies (e.g. yoga, deep breathing).
- Use colour to help tamariki learn about emotions. Teach feeling words and a range of intensity using a colour wheel. See do2learn's website and resources for more.
- Teach feeling vocabulary using a variety of embedded strategies throughout the day using games, craft activities, songs and storybooks that focus on feelings.
- Observe children's facial expression, body language, and tone of voice in order to help label their feelings based on your observations (e.g. "You seem a bit discouraged", "You look excited about going for morning tea").
- Read books that focus on characters who experience different feelings and talk about these feelings with tamariki afterwards. Pose questions to foster reflection on how to verbalise and manage emotions such as, "What do you think they were feeling?"; "What do you think they should do?"
- Encourage tamariki to tune into other's feelings and to respond with empathy.
- Express your own feelings out loud (e.g. 'that was frustrating for me') and demonstrate positive ways for dealing with feelings (e.g. 'I better take a deep breath').
- Practice deep breathing. Have tamariki take three to five deep belly breathes. Take a slow breath in for about four seconds, hold the breath for one or two seconds, exhale slowly through the mouth for four or five seconds, wait two to three seconds and then repeat several times.
- As an adult role model, demonstrate how you reframe situations by talking about positive and negative aspects of what happened. Show tamariki how you remain optimistic, e.g. “I am a bit stressed because I was in a small accident this morning. This is upsetting, but I'm grateful that no one was hurt.”
