Raising a Generation that is Emotionally Literate
“He is sad, because the happy one hit him. And there are sad clouds above him! Cos that is what sad feels like! Grey clouds above you!” John Aged 4 years.
In recent years we often speak about the importance of emotional literacy and learning from a young age to become emotionally literate. Emotional literacy can be defined as an ability to be able to identify, share, understand, develop empathy; and talk about our emotions (Sharp 2001). With the growing understanding and theoretical ideas around emotional literacy, we see the value to children’s development, self-confidence, self-worth, well-being and indeed the necessity of becoming emotionally literate so the future generation fully succeed and reach their full potential.
For a few months now I have had a little example, knocking around in my head that has given me lots to think about on the topic of emotional literacy, how far we have come and what does this look like in young children. I was participating in some painting with a couple of children who were painting happy and sad faces; completely child-led this was not an adult designed activity or outcome of painting! None the less we were identifying and talking about what they were feeling. We were even talking about what might be making them sad or happy. For example, the boy is sad because there is a monster in his bedroom. Even though we were already having this amazing conversation, I remember, being taken back by J’s (age 4) response to, “tell me about your picture”. I never expected such a profound and articulate response that many adults I know may struggle to express.
“He is sad, because the happy one hit him. And there are sad clouds above him! Cos that is what sad feels like! Grey clouds above you!”
Wow! Right, this is emotional literacy, knowing what feelings are but also developing an ability to express what that emotion feels like to us ourselves. But it is even more, there is a next step to emotional literacy that goes beyond identifying, showing, empathy and talking about emotions. This is a great first step and we do a lot of it in the early years, through our enabling environment and positive relationships. For example, we often have picture books that label emotions with young children within the story area. Or us ourselves as part of our pedagogical approach will say things such as, “I wonder how you are feeling?”, “You look very sad. When I am sad, everything feels heavy”. These are discussions that skilful early years practitioners often have. Supporting children through, open questioning, modelling language and giving them space to explore their emotions in a non-judgemental space.
However, beyond this there are other elements to emotional literacy. Claude Steiner (1979) was one of the first theorists to talk about emotional literacy and he identified 5 elements to emotional literacy. These were:
· Knowing your feelings,
· Empathy,
· Managing your emotions,
· Repairing emotional problems,
· Developing emotional interactivity.
I personally, love this model for breaking down the different aspects of emotional literacy and how the different elements work alongside one another. With the addition of what do we do beyond knowing our feelings, which traditionally has been a massive focus of Personal, Social and Emotional Development (PSED) in the early years. Over the next coming weeks, we are going to use Steiner’s framework of the elements of emotional literacy and break them down and look at them in relation to the first 5 years of children’s lives. What does that element look like, but also how can we support our children through our curriculum and pedagogical approach.
References:
Sharp, P. (2001) Nurturing Emotional Literacy. Oxon: Routledge.
British Science Week 2023
Our third blog in our series for British Science Week 2023 is looking at how we can support scientific learning through participating in cooking and baking activities with children in the early years. Cooking with children is a great way of support scientific learning, from making observations, working collaboratively and developing their language skills…
Connections
10th - 19th March 2023
Blog 3 - The opportunities for scientific learning through cooking activities.
Our third blog in our series for British Science Week 2023 is looking at how we can support scientific learning through participating in cooking and baking activities with children in the early years. Cooking with children is a great way of support scientific learning, from making observations, working collaboratively and developing their language skills. To support specific knowledge applied to STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics); through hands-on practical life experiences. For example, measuring ingredients whilst cooking, learning about cause and effects, liquids and solids, changes in materials and so on.
Baking Bread with Children
Baking bread with children in early years settings used to be one of my all time favourite cooking activities to do. It is rich with supporting so many areas of learning across the EYFS (Early Years Foundation Stage), from working on those physical skills, hand-eye coordination, muscles development in arms and hands for writing, to supporting mathematical learning whilst they measure ingredients. But additionally baking bread is great for children who are learning about changes over time and cause and effect. As they learn to make observations and talk about what they see, for example, the dough rising (or growing) before popping it in the oven. The change between the dough and the cooked bread. There are lots of opportunities here for children to develop those all important STEM skills that we talk about and make connections between their observations.
Or the simple observations of the reaction that happens with yeast, warm water and sugar. Have you ever mixed your yeast with warm water in a bottle and placed a balloon over the end to see what happens? As the yeast reacts with the sugar, it lets of the gas of carbon dioxide and inflates the balloon. Find out more here.
Connections and Cooking
This years theme for British Science Week is connections. Learning about food is a great way for children to make connections in their everyday discoveries. Everyone needs food and food can be a fantastic way of opening the doors to many other areas of learning and development. For example, the British Science Week Activity Pack shares an early years activity idea for how does food get to our plate. Click here to learn more.
Cooking with children is a great way to open up discussion around food, where does it come from? How do we make the flour to go into our cakes? An endless amount of questions and opportunities that can be extended in a variety of ways from learning about how a flour mill works to planting your own vegetables in the garden to use whilst cooking. This is one of the fantastic things in the early years, we can ask those questions alongside the children, become curious learners with them and develop our own ideas.
As well as the endless connections children are going to develop whilst participating in cooking activities and learning about the ingredients, carrots are hard - tomatoes are soft. Learning about how sugar dissolves in warm water, or how mixtures change over time e.g. a cake mixture goes from a liquid consistency to a solid. What an amazing awe moment for a 2 year old? They are physically learning so much about cause and effect through these activities.
2 More Things to Try Cooking this British Science Week
Chocolate Shredded Wheat Nests
Observe and talk about:
What happens to the chocolate when it gets warm?
Why is the chocolate melting?
What will happen if we put them in the fridge?
What happens to the chocolate when it cools down?
Vegetable Soup
Observe and talk about:
Where do all the vegetables used come from?
Talk about vegetable properties, how do they grow?
Talk about what happens to the vegetables as you cook them.
How does the soup change in consistency?
Using Your Curriculum to Promote Oral Health in the Early Years
This is part two of our blogs on oral health and the revised early years framework. In this blog we are going to focus on how we can use our curriculum to support oral health in the early years. So firstly, let’s consider what do we mean by curriculum? In its simplest terms our curriculum is what we want children to learn. This includes the programme, methods, and activities that we choose to implement our curriculum; to ensure that children meet the learning intention highlighted in our curriculum.
So, let’s consider – what do we want children to learn about oral health within the early years? It might be that you choose to base these on statements within development matters or birth to five matters. Or it may be that you want to come up with broader terms, such as those below.
“Our curriculum is designed to support teaching and children learning about oral health through a play-based and hands-on curriculum. We want children to learn about how to look after their teeth and the importance of good oral hygiene. Our curriculum is designed to support children’s learning and development in a holistic way, so that they develop good routines around oral hygiene and a healthy relationship with food. As a setting our curriculum embeds learning and developing oral hygiene through our everyday interactions and routines, as well as our short-term and long-term planning. “
Below are a few ideas of what you might be interested in doing as activities or experiences as part of your curriculum to support oral health in the early years:
1. Singing songs about brushing teeth and practising the circular motion that we use as we brush our teeth by doing actions.
The toothbrush on the teeth goes round and round,
round and round,
The toothbrush on the teeth goes round and round,
all day long.
(To the tune of the wheels on the bus)
2. Sharing books and stories about going to the dentist (keep an eye out for our upcoming blog ‘Review of Top Ten Books to Promote Oral Health’)
3. Tuff tray play -brushing fake teeth or small world animals’ teeth using toothbrushes and toothpaste.
4. Draw on plastic blocks with whiteboard markers and use a toothbrush and toothpaste to clean of the marks.
5. Get children familiar with the circular motion of brushing teeth big style, using those gross motor skills using toothbrushes to mark-make in shaving foam, coloured sand and paint.
6. The egg experiment – boil eggs and pop them in different fluids for a few days, for example, coke, coffee, milk, water, juice, and squash. Talk about how the outside of the egg is like the enamel of your teeth, observe and talk about what has happened to the enamel and what those different things do to our teeth.
7. Make an interactive display showing and measuring out how much sugar is in different common foods and drinks.
8. Encourage children to join in cooking and making healthy snacks and foods and talk about the benefits of the different foods to our health.
9. Heuristic play – all types of brushes basket. For toddlers and preschool children consider extending heuristic play by having a brush themed basket. For example, hairbrush, toilet brush, pastry brush, toothbrush and so on. As children explore the basket it gives you the opportunity to open discussion about purpose and function of different objects.
10. Have a dentist or dental nurse come and visit your setting and talk about their job role.
Do you want to find out more about the revised framework, your curriculum or pedagogical approach? You might be interested in some of our upcoming webinars below:
· Understanding Your Curriculum
· The Relationship between Pedagogy and Curriculum
Keep an eye out for our next blog in our oral health in the early years series…