First Level – ‘A Huge Bag of Worries’

Created on: 22 Dec 2020 | Last modified: 21 Apr 2023

HWB Focus: Mental and Emotional HWB, Relationships

Week 1

Week 2

  • Build on discussions about feelings – what makes us happy, sad, angry, worried? Some children might be worried about Coronavirus and what is happening just now.

  • Listen to the story, ‘A Huge Bag of Worries’ by Virginia Ironside - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E7utCQYcuvo

  • Talk about the different types of emotions –help the children develop their recognition of different emotions in different people. This could be through looking at a range of different emojis and talking about what they mean. Alternatively, the feelings cards on websites, such as https://www.socialworkerstoolbox.com/feelings-cards-naming-feelings/, might be helpful in doing this. Invite the children to create their own Mood Emojis.

  • Make a worry monster with a big mouth so that it can eat up worries – the children might want to use junk modelling or even paper mache (recipe - https://www.bbcgoodfood.com/howto/guide/how-make-paper-mache) What will it look like?  What is its name?

  • Encourage the children, with an adult, to make their own bubbles. A recipe can be found here with good instructions on how to make a bubble wand - https://wredtedart.com/bubble-recipe/?cn-reloaded=1

  • Now invite the children to take their bubbles and their monster outside and blow away those worries.

  • For those children who want to explore shape and bubbles a little more – parents/carers can bend coat hangers into different shapes. Explore whether the bubbles come out in the same shapes as the newly formed bubble wand. This encourages discussions about spheres, ovals, triangles and squares.

  • If the children want to try some meditation, they could use the You Tube Floating Bubble Meditation - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zxcJ8y7RcjU

  • Invite the children to think about who their trusted adults are and who they can talk to if they have a worry – they may want to make a card for their special person or send them a picture of them with their worry monster.

  • Write a story using the story opener – ‘Once upon a time a spaceship landed in my garden.’

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