Invitation to Sort Our Feelings
The Social-Emotional aspect of a child is the foundation that supports all areas of development. The stronger awareness and support a child is provided, the more equipped the child will be to navigate their growth in all aspects of their life. Social-Emotional development heavily affects & influences the child, therefore providing and using as many tools as possible early on will only benefit the children in an impactful way.
Young children acquire social and emotional competencies in ways that are often different from how they acquire competence in the naming of letters or numbers. Social-emotional skills emerge through children’s experience in close relationships and the varied exposures that occur in relational experience, such as shared conversation, warm nurturance, and intentional guided learning capacities for sociability, responsibility, and self- control.
Just as with anything in the learning process of a child, the more you provide language + literacy along with hands-on experiences that explore social emotional development, the stronger the foundation is established for the child.
This month we have been exploring feelings and today at circle time we read the book The Color Monster by Anna Llenas. This book is such an amazing story that associates colors with emotions in a way that is easy for young children to process and understand.
We set out a tuff tray with a whole bunch of colorful loose parts, empty clear jars, and cut outs of each emotion in color from the book. To extend the literacy experience we asked each child to communicate what they were feeling today, then sort through the jumbled up colorful loose parts, pick the color, and sort it in the emotion jar just like the book, and transition to snack time. This process aids the child in further comprehending the concepts of the story while openly communicating their emotions in the classroom in a safe way.
Here are two other invitations that explore social emotional learning: Emotion Sensory Bottles & Invitation to Explore Social Emotional Feelings.