A friendship Recipe

Welcome to our first ever, Bright Kids Resilience Bookclub Blog.

February focus combined all the components of FRIENDSHIP. What makes a good friendship? How do we make friends and build a bond?

This month we have taken a compilation of books and created a ‘Friendship Recipe’. Click the link below

A Friendship Recipe for your very own copy.

Children learn through engagement and repetition. Each topic in the recipe was taught over the course of one week. By the end of the month….. presto! You have an entire “Friendship Recipe” consisting of all the layered aspects of a good friendship. Layering each topic down to what it means to be kind, to share, to respect ones self and others and to have fun together. Children need to be taught how to be a good friend, they can’t just be told to be one.

Children are the sweet wonders of the creator, a blank canvas. They absorb their surroundings and the people around them. They learn to be good friends, they learn to be team players, they learn to share, give and love unconditionally through their conditioned influences.  

So what does their everyday conditioned environment look like? What does it look like at home and at school?

We take you through a glimpse of what their environment looks like in the classroom. Follow the journey from Pre-prep through to babies. All our specialized programs are modified to every age group. Resilience being our staple program.

In The Sea Turtles PRE PREP Classroom

Our goal as a collective, is to find ways to fill our “Kindness Jar” and proudly observe our personal progress towards being the best version of ourselves. This resilience tool evokes both intrinsic and extrinsic motivators.

All components of Kindness develops:

• Self-regulation;
• Improved problem-solving skills;
• Increased self-confidence;
• Better emotional regulation; and
• Improved social skills.

Teaching kindness through resilience tools helps children deal with stress, develop better coping strategies, and become more independent.

Kindness focus in our pre-prep classroom, has encouraged the children to develop empathy, respect and a sense of responsibility.

It has encouraged the children to foster a sense of community and cooperation among the other children and create a positive learning environment.

The Kindness Jar

The kindness jar tool has served it’s purpose in fulfilling imaginative and creative ways to  encourage positive behaviour and also the ability to reinforce desired behaviours. It has motivated the children to not only show many acts of kindness, but to also complete tasks and put the effort into achieving great work.

Providing incentives throughout the day for tasks completed, modelling kind behaviour , reinforcing desired behaviour and encouraging positive interactions with others, created opportunities for children to practice kindness by:

• Sharing;
• Turn taking;
• Showing empathy; and
• Demonstrating kindness towards others.

Has help build self-esteem and provide a sense of accomplishment.

The Importance

It has also encompassed teaching children about respect and responsibility, and most importantly, helping them understand the importance of being kind to others. Other ways we showed kindness in kindergarten has included helping others, cooperating, being kind to living things, being respectful of others, being a good listener, and being inclusive of others. It has also involved ways of being patient, being generous, and showing appreciation for others.

Miss Tracy x

In The Snakes Senior Kindy Classroom

Kindness fosters wellness and wellness is a magnet for friendship.

Our ‘friendship recipe’ consists of the 4 main learning components Kindness, Sharing, Respect and Fun. How do we learn to be a good friend, to make friends and keep them. This is what teaching friendship in our age group of 3-4 years old looks like.

Kindness

We started the week by reading the book “Kindness Makes Us Strong” by Sophie beer. This opened up a group discussion about what we can do to be kind to others and what things make people unhappy.  We took those answers and wrote them on paper.

As a collective we made two faces, a happy and a sad face. The children each chose from what we wrote down and glued them onto the matching face. This activity demonstrated how much the children consolidated the concept of, what choices feel good and what choices have a negative impact on others. This helps children make better behaviour choices.

Benefits of Kindness:

• Increases Happiness and Improves Mood.
• Better Health for Kids.
• Builds connections.
• A Confidence Booster.
• Decreases negative.
• The Influence of Kindness.

Sharing

This is a topic that is discussed on a daily basis in this age group, so today we intentionally read the book “Share Bear” by Sunny Mai. The story was about a teddy bear that the class must share and talk turns in playing with. So that’s exactly what we did! As a collective we chose a class soft toy to share for the day. Each child got a turn to play with the unicorn and when finished playing with it, they intentionally shared it with another child. The act of sharing felt good and each child was happy to have a turn and pass it on.

Sharing develops cooperation, turn taking, negotiation skills, fairness, compromising and how to cope with disappointment. It’s a key element to getting along with others and being a team player.

Such interactions necessitate getting along with others, especially with peers who are also just exploring a world outside themselves. Children learn that if we give a little to others, we can get some of what we want too. This helps children to play and work together, make friends and keep them to play another day.

Respect

We used a ‘Y’ chart to help us learn about respect, followed by a group discussion. The topics we talked about in the Y chart are:

• What does respect feel like to you?

Happy, safe, calm.

• What does respect sounds like?

Please, thank you, excuse me.

• What does respect look like?

Giving someone space, waiting your turn.

Teaching children the three forms of respect:

Self respect, respect for others and respect for other peoples property.

Self:

• Positive self-talk;
• Taking care of ourselves by managing emotions;
• Walk away from people that are being mean; and
• Making choices that feel good.

Others:

• Appropriate language- No name calling;
• Allowing others to express a different opinion;
• Treating others kindly-No bullying;
• Using our manners at all times;
• Look people in the eyes when we speak to them; and
• Listening while others speak.

Other people’s property:

• Reminding children of how they would want their toys to be treated.

Fun

Fun is about lightness and feel good moments. Being kind to others feels good, so sharing, respecting others and being kind is about having fun, all rolled into one.

Balloon play can be a great way to boost resilience, which is the ability to recover from setbacks and keep going even when things go wrong. It can also build persistence as they learn to keep trying even when it is difficult.

Balloons also make for a great re-direction tool. Redirecting focus by blowing up balloons which requires focused breathwork. Breathwork changes brainwaves and helps calm the body. They are colourful, light and easier to catch than a ball. In this exercise the children develop hand-eye coordination, which is a perfect beginner activity, for learning to catch.

These skills are important for Social and emotional development and learning new things.

Miss Hannelie x

In The Dolphins Toddler Room

In the dolphin’s room we embed our mindful kid’s resilience program within our daily curriculum. Each day we support the children by providing a growth mindset to view each experience and opportunities to support each child.

Our resilience book club focus for the month was creating a “Friendship Recipe”. The Dolphin children enjoyed engaging in activities that created our modified version for 18mths -2.6 years olds.

Bubbble Blowing

This first activity was to teach personal space, sharing and turn taking.

We work with bubbles on a regular basis in this age group. It’s a wonderful redirection and breathwork tool, which helps children pivot their emotions and calm down.

Today, we all sat on the mat across from each other and all took turns in waiting our turn and then entering the space provided to catch the bubble. We then moved around to the verandah and continued the learning through sharing toys and compromising in the home corner with a tea party.

Role Play

After discussing the picture book “RESPECT” written by Helen Mortimer and Christina Trapanese. We learnt about kind gestures and respecting family, friends and our environment, which help us feel happy and safe.

The children then walked around the room, role-playing acts of kindness towards our friends by playing fairly and respecting our classroom by picking up and packing away our toys

Story Telling

Story telling is how we read books at this age. Summarising the story and putting it in a way our children understand.

This storybook “KINDNESS” written by Mandy Archer was an engaging fun “lift the flap book” . Engaging the children is key to keeping their focus.  This story helped the children learn about kindness in everyday life with a focus on social skills and empathy. Which in this age group, comes back to sharing, taking turns and being kind to our friends.

Child Led Fun

This activity was a child led activity. The vote to explore their fun with water play in the big yard was unanimous!! Waterplay activities help to develop and strengthen children’s gross and fine motor skills. Enjoying fun new experiences in a group setting, allows children have the opportunity to develop their emotional strength and become resilient.   

To consolidate these teachings the “Friendship Recipe” is now a part of our morning mat routine. We practise intentions on a daily basis to create a fun, sharing, respectful Kind of day.

Miss Sabrina x

In The Little Fish Babies Room

We teach resilience through role modelling, redirection and engaging our babies in breathwork and re-directional activities.

The friendship recipe in this age group of babies to 18 months, consisted mainly of songs and story books. Our focus was on Taking turns, sharing and using our manners.

We found the Cheeky Monkey Manners collection the most engaging for this learning activity. The children learnt about different types of manners and what it means to treat our friends with respect and kindness.

•  “Taking Turns” is about different techniques we can use to make sharing fun and fair between our friends.
•  “Thank You” is about Cheeky Monkey sharing kindness with his friends by giving them cookies made with love. They showed him kindness back by using their manners and saying “Thank you”.
• “Please” is about Cheeky Monkey using his manners when asking for things.

Miss Tash x

Homeplay

Ways children can share kindness at home can include helping with:

• Doing chores;
• Being kind and helpful to siblings;
• Speaking respectfully to parents;
• Good listening;
• Sharing their belongings;
• Being patient; and
• showing appreciation for family members.

Teaching manners and social skills at an early age is important because it helps the behaviour to become second nature. Using manners and showing kindness towards others is a vital part of interacting in society and never goes unnoticed.

Let us know your thoughts in the comments below and if there is anything you wish to share, please do.

That’s all from the Bright Kids team until next time

Miss Honey-Nicodah x

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