Children’s Mental Health Week

At nursery we are committed to helping children to learn about the importance of keeping their minds healthy just the same as their bodies and this has been highlighted even more during Children's Mental Health Week. (05-09/ 02/19) Our learning has been linked to every child's right to get information important to their wellbeing. (UNCRC A17)

The focus for this year was ‘healthy inside and out’

When we think about healthy living, we tend to focus on looking after our bodies – our physical wellbeing – through food, being active and getting enough sleep.

However, in order to be healthy overall, it’s important that we look after our minds – our mental wellbeing – too.

Our bodies and minds are actually very closely linked, so things that we do to improve our physical wellbeing can help our mental wellbeing as well. When we take steps to be Healthy: Inside and Out, it helps us to feel better in ourselves, focus on what we want to do and deal with difficult times.

www.childrens mentalhealthweek.org

At nursery as part of our ethos which underpins everything that we do,

• we constantly help children to develop a good self-image, self-motivation and independence as we understand that having a positive view of themselves helps them to cope with the challenges that life presents.

• We encourage our children to talk about their feelings, discuss what they like about themselves and each other and develop calm and respectful relationships as we understand that building connections with each other is so important for their own wellbeing and that of others.

• We support children to achieve their true potential by developing their creativity, nurturing their skills and inspiring them to be the very best that they can be.

This week we have had a special focus on ‘ourselves’ and the importance of looking after our minds and our emotional health and wellbeing as well as our bodies.

We revisit The Colour Monster Story to help us to discuss and contextualise how we are feeling and why. and throughout the week we have had a focus on the colour green ( this is the Colour Monster’s calm colour) playing with green activities such as green, lavender scented dough for extra relaxation. We talk about the importance of fresh air and exercise as a way to make us feel positive and healthy and we also listen to different types of music, describing how it made us feel and especially focusing on music which made us feel relaxed or happy. We also read lots of other stories about feelings and about the importance of being ourselves and talked about what we like about ourselves and our friends, using the identity tree to help us. Some children have been having a go at some ‘Cosmic Yoga to help them to relax and others have been having a quiet mindful time at the end of the session to help them to feel relaxed and think about themselves, their body’s, minds and their learning during the day.

For more information about Children's Mental Health Week you can follow the link below.

Please note that nursery is not responsible for the content of this site or any advertising.