Thursday, April 29, 2010

A Fishful Thinking Preschool Corner - HAPPY collages

In hopes of finding some fun preschool ideas and sharing some activities that my kids enjoy, I'm linking up with Homeschool Creations' Preschool Corner for this week's Fishful Thinking Thursday post.


Last week, the kids worked on these Feeling Collages - Pick a feeling and work with your child to make a collage that illustrates that feeling. Use pictures from magazines, family photos, drawings or words to illustrate what that feeling is like for your child. Paste the pictures onto one piece of paper. Post them on the wall.
My three-year-old and I decided to work on a "HAPPY picture" as he called it. Spiderman, Batman, Toy Story, Cars, etc...all make Noah feel happy. I love the smiley face that he drew all by himself. He's becoming quite the artist these days.

My daughter is almost six so her poster had a little more variety -
Ice cream cones and sunshine would be on my collage too. :) She even drew a picture of our family. Such a sweet kiddo. Of course, she drew a dog too. She never imagined when she made this that we'd get a new puppy this week! (Neither did I.)

Abby and Noah had a lot of fun making these - which are now proudly displayed in the kitchen - and help to remind them of the things that make them smile. Abby actually made hers when she had a yucky case of strep throat and had to stay home from school for a couple days. It was amazing how a simple activity like this really helped to cheer her up.

For more great kids' activities that promote Emotional Awareness - the ability to identify and express what you are feeling and to have empathy for what others are feeling, click here!

Here are a few of the books we've read to help the kids identify and talk about different feelings:

I Was So Mad by Mercer Mayer
(One of my favorites - too funny!)

My Friend is Sad by Mo Willems
(Gotta love Gerald & Piggie!)

My Heart is like a Zoo by Michael Hall
(This book is genius & so cute - love it!)

Next up is a game of Emotion Charades! I'm going to have Abby & Noah help make the cards and use words like happy, sad, angry, excited, silly, nervous, brave, shy, etc... We love dancing to Mood Music, so I'm sure Charades will be a lot of fun too.

*Done any Fishful Thinking this week?
Be sure to add your link in a comment.
Thanks!

8 comments:

phasejumper said...

Thank you for stopping by my blog-I love comments!
Great project-You might like the following books: I was so mad (by Karen Erickson and Maureen Roffey) or the Way I Feel (by Janan Cain).

Emmy said...

That is a cute project! Sorry your daughter was sick

sbswtp said...

What a great project!

Debbie said...

I love the idea of a Happy Collage!

Sherri said...

I love the Happy Collage! What a great idea!

KJ said...

What a good idea, a feelings collage!

Natalie PlanetSmarty said...

Visiting from Homeschool Corner - I love the idea of Mood music and Happy Collage. I might do it with my daughter and hang it up in her room.

raising4boys said...

I love it! I need to remember all these great FT activities when they are bored this summer :)