May Book Club Review- The Angry Bull

The book reviewed for our May Book Club, “The Angry Bull”, is a vibrantly illustrated and pivotal tool for children. Easy to read and beautifully written by Charlotte Dane and illustrated by Adam Riong, is an innovative way to teach children about the 5 senses as a pivotal tool to harness their emotional world.

We delve into our 5 senses like we never have before. Diving deeper into the why and how of our bodies receptors. We discovered that the nervous system must receive and process information about the world outside in order to react, communicate, and keep the body healthy and safe. Much of this information comes through the sensory organs: the eyes, ears, nose, tongue, and skin. Specialized cells and tissues within these organs receive raw stimuli and translate them into signals the nervous system can use. Nerves relay the signals to the brain, which interprets them as:

• Sight (vision) -The Eyes Translate Light into Image Signals for the Brain to Process.
• Sound (hearing) -The Ear Uses Bones and Fluid to Transform Sound Waves into Sound Signals.
• Smell (olfaction)- Olfaction: Chemicals in the Air Stimulate Signals the Brain Interprets as Smells.
• Taste (gustation)- Home of the Taste Buds: The Tongue Is the Principal Organ of Gustation.
• Touch (tactile perception)- Specialized Receptors in the Skin Send Touch Signals to the Brain.

Understanding how our body works on a deeper level has assisted the Educators in facilitating, expanding and extending the teachings of the importance of embracing our natural processes. This children’s book uses these signals to the brain as a guide in teaching children how to manage emotions by redirecting their focus to the present moment, by using the five senses tool, which assists them in calmly overcoming obstacles.

Each room modified this tool for their age group, read more to learn what this looks like in the classroom setting.

Sea Turtles Room Book Club Review

From birth to early childhood, children utilise their five senses to help them understand the big wide world around them. Look, listen, touch, taste, and smell are often taken for granted. Yet these senses are pivotal to learning complex tasks.

Story telling through body language

The pre-prep children really enjoyed getting to learn more about the story ‘The Angry Bull’ by first looking at the illustrations and trying to guess what the story could be about. This created a group discussion on how we express ourselves with our body language. We then excitedly read the story as a group to learn it didn’t start as we thought. The bull was calm and could control himself, this story was how he got to this point by learning and exploring about his 5 senses.

Sensory Play Exploration

After reading the story and learning that it was about controlling our emotions with a 5 senses exercise. Using our sensory play to explore and engage in experiences at kindy, help build skills in cognitive growth, fine and gross motor skills, problem-solving, social and language development.

Through sensory play children develop independent and creative thinking; that enriches their imagination and cognitive capabilities. As a result, they absorb sensory information which helps prompt brain development. Subsequently, their brain creates stronger connections that allow children to process and respond to sensory information whilst they play.

Identifying Senses

The Sea Turtle children explored their senses with a hands-on mat experience, describing the many different materials that were displayed in front of them to decide whether they what to touch, look, smell, hear or taste the item picked. We placed our items onto a labelled board in front of our group to reflect on our findings at the end. We did notice how it was hard to hear our displayed items without touch too, so we extended on our hearing sense by gathering into a circle laying on our backs and taking 5 minutes to close our eyes and hear all the many sounds in our Kindy environment.

Miss Tracy x

Snakes Room Book Club Review

Storybook excerpt “Bull routinely impressed his family, friends, and teachers with his ability to control his emotions and anger. He was always upbeat and looked at the bright side of things! He could remain calm in the toughest of circumstances, and never so much as raised his voice. But he wasn’t always that way”.

Note to parents excerpt “Once upon a time, Bull’s friend Fox showed him a simple and small tip that completely changed his approach. Find out what this tip is, and how to use it to instill emotional maturity, self-control, and mindfulness in your growing child!”

What This Book Teaches Children

• How to deal with obstacles and hardships in life;
• The value of emotional control and letting things go;
• The costs of explosive anger, outbursts, and lashing out at the people around you; and
• The lesson of how to be happy even when you don’t get what you want

What is Anger and Why Do We Feel It?

1. Anger is an emotion.  When we feel angry we can also feel irritable, tense, and anxious. 
2. Anger is not a bad thing, it just means our body is telling us that something is bothering us.
3. We all feel angry sometimes. Once we identify the emotion, we can learn ways that help us control our anger.

Activities To Help With Our Anger

We read the ‘Angry Bull’, which the children enjoyed very much. After a group discussion we moved onto a 5 senses activity, just like Angry Bull did. Using a wheel with 5 senses, we engaged with the following:

• Notice five things that we could see. We looked around us.
• Notice four things that we can feel. Tune in to your sense of touch.
• Notice three things we can hear. Listen carefully to the things we could hear.
• Notice two things we can smell. Notice and name two smells you recognize.
• Notice one thing you can taste. Focus and name one thing that you can taste.

This exercise is a wonderful redirection tool to bring children out of their heads and into their hearts and grounded in the present moment. By the time the children think about what they see, feel, hear, smell and taste, they forget why they were angry. The 5 senses activity encourages you to be aware of your environment.

Extension Activity

We made a feelings box to release our angry feelings.  This is a fun anger management activity for the children. We made our feelings box to look like a bull, just like in the storybook. You will need the following to make this at home:

• Empty Tissue box
• Paint
• Pieces of paper cuts to make horns, ears, etc.
• Glue

How does a feelings box work?

1. Express your feelings on paper by writing them down or drawing them.
2. Now that you have released the emotion, park your feelings by placing them in the feelings box. This allows you to cope in the present moment and deal with them when you are ready.
3. When you are ready, retrieve your picture or written feelings from the box and burn it. Let your feelings of anger, irritation, tension or anxiety go, as you watch the paper burn.

Identifying our feelings is what assists us in processing them and Letting them go, sometimes there is nothing we can do about the situation or event that trigger our emotions.  In those cases, it may be better to accept those feelings and let them go.

Miss Hannelie x

Dolphins Room Book Club Review

Over the past week we introduced the story book “The Angry Bull” during group time. “The Angry Bull” takes us on a journey of exploring all emotions and seeing situations from a brighter perspective, redirecting negative thoughts into neutral ones by focusing on the present, using the five senses tool.

As our dolphin’s friends are currently learning all about the different emotions they may encounter on a day-to-day basis, we tend to focus on breathwork and sensory tools to manage those emotions. “The Angry Bull” storybook helped influence the children to concentrate on their breathing as we explored the 5 senses.

Mindful Breathing

We extended on “The angry bull “with a “5-sense” breathing strategy, focusing on each sense in our environment. Mindfully breathing while we shared;

• 5 things we could see;
• 4 things we could hear;
• 3 things we could feel;
• 2 things we could smell; and
• 1 thing we could taste.

We carried on this activity in our routines over the course of the week to continue the practice of mindfully using our 5 senses.

What we can see:

The children love to look out the window, so this was a great experience to encourage the children to talk about what they could see. The children were taken outside to line up along the fence and describe what they could see outside the fence? “Birds Birdies” “Car” “truck”. This is something the children do on a daily bases and help redirect the mind when feeling overwhelmed.

What we can smell:

Using a selection of dried and natural flowers the children sat in a circle in the environmental yard for a breathing and stillness session. The children were demonstrated how to take a deep breath in through their nose to sniff the flowers. The children each took turns as they passed around the flowers taking a deep sniff in through their nose.

What we feel:

Playdough is one of our favourite activities. The children sat down at the art table and where asked to close their eyes and take a big deep breath in as felt the texture of the soft playdough in front of them. The children where then asked to roll the dough in between their hands taking deep breaths in through their nose and out through their mouths. Some comments between Educators and children: How does it feel? “Cold” “It’s Cold” “Soft” “Squish”

What we can hear:

Laying on group time mat as waterfall music played. The children were asked to close their eyes for this activity focusing on breathing in and out slowly, talking them through each breath. When the children were still and relaxed, they were asked to listen to the music and think about what they could hear. When asked what you could hear the children answered “WATER” “BEACH” “ITS RAINING”.

What we can taste:

During each of our mealtime we really focused on the food we were given and the different textures. The children were asked to sit around the tables and close their eyes taking a big deep breath in and appreciating the Aromas first. The children were asked to slow down their eating, eating one thing at a time to really feel and taste the different flavours in their mouths. The children were asked question such as “Is it sweet?”, “Is it sour?”, “Is it yummy?”

In the dolphin’s room we found exploring our 5 senses was a great way to feel grounded and reconnected with ourselves. We will be continuing to embed this technique on a regular basis to assist the children within the moment when emotions are high.

Miss Sabrina x

Little Fish Room Book Club Review

This month’s book club book was “The Angry Bull”. The story follows a bull’s journey from getting angry at everything small to being able to control his anger and return to a calm and Zen state of mind. We read the story together multiple times as repetitiveness is the key to learning in this age group. This book, talks us through the “5 senses” calming exercise. When you become angry or frustrated, you stop and think about;

• 5 things you can see,
• 4 things you can hear,
• 3 things you can touch or feel,
• 2 things you can smell and
• 1 thing you can taste.

In the Little Fish room, as a follow on from this book, we will focus on a different sense every week.

We began with the sense of smell (olfactory), to incorporate the different breathing techniques, the Little Fish children have been practicing, such as, using their mouth for an in and out breath movement.

The breathing in to smell has been a great extension from that. Using our nose to sniff and breathe in. As the children’s confidence builds with the nose inhale, we will then work on joining the inhale through the nose with the exhale through the mouth action and continue to develop our deep breathing calming tools. 

Breathwork with Intentional scents

Extension Activity : Inhaling through the nose with intentional scents

We collected rosemary, mint and basil from the Centre garden and incorporated a fruity smelling candle. With all the herbs in a basket and the candle on the table, we all sat around the table, taking it in turns to smell each scent. I demonstrated the breathing in through the nose action as the herbs were passed from child to child. They all got the hang of it quite quickly, pulling funny faces if the leaves tickled their noses. As they realised, they could give it a go themselves, they started reaching for pieces of the herbs from the basket and putting it to their own noses to sniff. They loved the smell of the fruity, watermelon and coconut candle.

What’s Next

We will continue to explore different breathing techniques as well as paying attention to the other senses. Adding in conversations during our regular routine about;

• The feel (tactile perception) of different objects and surfaces,
• Different flavours and tastes (gustation) of the food they’re eating,
• Pointing out sounds (hearing) in our environment like birds, cars and sirens, and lastly
• Saying and pointing to objects we can see (visual) in our classroom and outdoor settings.

The Benefits Of Learning Through Our Senses

• Brain Development and Cognitive Growth- Sensory play strengthens brain development and enhances memory functions. It helps to build nerve connections in the brain’s pathways; that enhance thought processes, understanding and reasoning. 
• Language Development -Sensory play helps young children to learn how to talk about the world in new ways. Thus, they develop language skills that help them to communicate much more effectively with their peers.
• Fine-tuning motor skills -Children identify objects by touch during tactile sensory play. Experiencing a variety of textures help them to develop fine and gross motor skills – pulling, pushing, squeezing and throwing. 
• Awareness and Adaptability- Active sensory play exposes children to new situations. This process allows them to become more self and body awareness, helping them to understand spatial awareness. As a result, children can adapt to new situations with ease. 
• Problem Solving Skills- Experimenting with different objects during sensory play helps children develop decision-making skills. They begin to find solutions to obstacles they encounter during sensory activity– such as how to climb or build.

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, we would love to hear from you.

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

Miss Honey-Nicodah x

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