Our March book club review is…. ‘Moody Cow’, by Kerry Lee MacLean.
Moody Cow is a Children’s storybook modelling practical ways to;
- Quieten their minds;
- Shift their focus;
- Develop patience;
- Practice breathwork;
- Become present; and
- Self-regulate their energy in motion. (E-Motion).
This self-regulating resilience tool helps children identify, express and release their feelings through a symbolic method, without the need for their emotions to be validated. The water is symbolic for the mind and the glitter is symbolic for the emotions. This exercise aids children in calming their mind through the power of letting go, shifting focus, sensory stimulation & breathwork.
Breathwork can help you reach a deeper state of mind by shifting from the sympathetic ‘fight and flight’ response to the parasympathetic ‘rest and digest’ state. It aids you in disengaging from distracting thoughts and sensations, which is why breathwork is one of the key tools in managing anxiety.
Teaching Children that Emotions are visitors, (it’s okay for them to come and go), they grasp the concept that all emotions are okay, we just don’t need to hold onto them.
Sea Turtles Book Review
The book was quite lengthy, so we read the book through different methods and avenues. We used the Indigenous pedagogy framework involving narrative-driven learning, visualised learning processes and hands-on/reflective techniques. As a collective we each had turns of expressing our emotions and sprinkling them into the jar. Once everyone had released their emotions, we shook the jar to symbolically show energy in motion, then we all sat, breathed deeply and patiently waited for the sparkles (emotions) to settle.
Extension Exercises
Sitting in the yarning circle we discussed what Moody means and what creates moody moments?
We grabbed moments from the book that demonstrated virtues like patience and the ability to turn negatives into positives. The secret was to calm our minds and our bodies first, so we could hear another persons words.
We expressed our moods through an art experience by using the table top mirrors to look at our expressions. The children could freely draw and express themselves using coloured pencils, then they moved onto self-portraits drawing the emotion they were feeling at the time.
Moody Cow Meditates, helps children develop self-awareness, empathy, mindfulness, self-regulation by identifying and releasing emotions, find the words to express how they feel and develop problem-solving skills.
Mindful Kids resilience program encompasses books like Moody Cow because teaching children to identify, self-regulate and pivot, helps them develop coping skills, social skills and build self-confidence.
This is a self-regulating tool we have available in our resilience basket at our ‘Mindful Kids’ station.
Miss Tracy x
Snakes Room Book Review
This story is about the journey of Peter the cow, his escalating bad day and how he turned it around through using mindful tools.
As the day unfolds, his anger builds and in a fit of rage he looses control of his emotions and throws a baseball bat through the kitchen window.
Turning to his grandfather for help, he learnt to identify, express and release his feelings. By talking about his day, he was able to identify how he felt. Once he had symbolically let out his balloon, he was ready to calm his mind through meditation and release the emotions into the water through the way of glitter.
As the glitter sinks to the bottom, he is focused, breathing deeply and patiently waiting for the sparkles (emotions) to settle.
Resilience tool
The Moody Mindful Jar offers a practical way to “meditate” with a child who doesn’t want to sit still. The idea is that your child can learn to use the jar on their own when they’re experiencing difficult emotions. This is a great tool for calming down and a fun craft project to do with your child.
The Glitter Jar is a proven mindfulness tool, helping children to:
- Learn focusing skills;
- Calm down; and
- Pay attention to their senses, which shifts their focus to the present moment.
Sensory Awareness
Sensory play includes any type of play that engages one or more of a child’s senses, primarily the sense of touch. The young child needs to handle and feel materials and objects to learn and develop.
Paying attention to our senses have such a strong calming effect because you shift your focus away from your emotions and thoughts.
We can pay attention to what we smell, touch, hear or see. Whenever we bring awareness to what we are experiencing with our senses, we are being mindful. When we do this, our minds calm down and we become present in the moment.
It’s a simple and powerful way to calm the mind chatter.
The children love our classroom sensory bottles, so after reading the story, we each made our own jar and talked more about our negative emotions and what makes us angry, sad, irritated or frustrated.
We then used a gong from ‘Youtube’ to begin and end our meditation. We shook our jars in order to get the sparkles in motion, then we placed the jars on the mat in front of us, breathed deeply and watched the glitter sink until they all settled.
Materials Needed:
- Glass Jar with a screw on lid;
- Water (fill half way); and
- Glitter for every angry thought.
Extensions
Our extensions over the course of the week looked like this:
- We used a paper jar and wrote our angry thoughts on the jar and then used glitter on top;
- As a collective, we read books about feelings to consolidate the different kinds of feelings; and
- Made jar suncatchers – We did this by using glitter and contact paper, writing the feelings around our suncatchers.
Miss Hannelie x
Dolphin Room Book Review
‘Moody Cow’ explores the day that Pete the cow, earnt himself the name “Moody Cow”. On Pete’s journey he visited his grandfather who supported Pete by listening and validating his emotions and teaching Pete a calming technique to use when he is feeling unsettled and angry.
The children responded positively to the “Moody cow” storybook and enjoyed capturing their own emotions in the classroom.
Implementing the Calming Tool
We moved our learning to our calm space of the room where the children sat on the mat.
Firstly we played with emotion flashcards to recite and recognise emotions.
We then role modelled by saying them aloud while sprinkling glitter into the jar of water. The children then took turns of sprinkling glitter into the jar while repeating the words “sad” and “angry” and in some cases their own version, which was ‘mooo cow’.
With the lid screwed on the jar, we shook it and placed it in the middle of the mat where the children concentrated on their mindful breathing until all the sprinkles settled at the bottom of the jar.
The ‘Mindful Jar’ shares the same methodology as the sensory bags and bottles, that the children squeeze and shake when they are dealing with big emotions. The difference is, this tool has a few more components, by the way of expressing their emotions, experiencing an extra sensory and focus element with the glitter and then fixating on the sparkles slowly sinking to the bottom, while they breathe deeply.
The Benefits of These Tools
This tool teaches children how to release negative emotions in a positive way while encouraging them to become confident by self-regulating.
Miss Sabrina x
Little Fish Book Review
Everything in our age group is about repetition. In the first couple of days we read the book twice. Over the course of the week, we read it everyday focusing on the pictures and paraphrasing the meaningful parts of the story.
The first activity we did was a picture of an empty jar on a piece of paper. I introduced this activity to the group, at a time when they were all getting a little tired and ready for lunch. So, instead of them being grumpy, it brought their focus to the table and doing the activity.
First we “pour the water in”, ie. put glue in the jar. Next, we stuck on some colourful confetti in place of the glitter. The children loved getting a big handful of the confetti and piling it onto their paper. Shaking their hands around if paper was stuck to their fingers. This art piece will remind us of what our feelings look like when they’re all shaken up.
The second activity we did was the traditional activity, outlined in the book. Filling the jar with water, and getting the children to add sprinkles of glitter to the jar. We shook it up and watched as the glitter settled. The children were interested in having a go at shaking the jar, and intrigued by the swirling glitter.
We will keep this jar handy in our resilience basket for when we’re experiencing some big emotions in our classroom setting. Children can shake the jar of glitter and watch it swirling around, until their emotions settle.
Miss Tash x
Our Program
Our ‘Mindful Kids’ resilience program is embedded and modified to every age group. The books and activities we incorporate assist with the teachings of consolidating and harnessing these life long skills.
Each month we review a different book from our book club. Some will correlate tools for children and some will be parent/educator interconnected.
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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