The Huge Bag of Worries

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The Government in Wales has signed the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC), stating that children and young people have rights, no matter who they are, where they live or what they believe in.

For those children who want to explore shape and bubbles a little more – parents/carers can bend coat hangers into different shapes. Using the discussions about the colours of the rainbows – look at the artist Kandinsky and invite the children to create their own Kandinsky styled pictures – https://www. Talk about the different types of emotions –help the children develop their recognition of different emotions in different people.

This worry bag activity is a great one to use with your class to help them think about and discuss their emotions. It is a picture book but it could be used with older children if you ask them to think about how it could be used to support younger children. if the children are happy to share the worries from the bag let them do so and discuss the strategies they could use to deal with the worry. Yellow Door (here’s a link) have produced Emotion Stones and I think theses would be a great supporting resource to aid the discussion on feelings and emotions. A moving, powerful story that shines a light on those that feel invisible in our world - and shows us that we ALL belong - from the author of Ruby's Worry.

You can find a lovely Mindfulness Pack available here, as well as some instructions on how to make your very own Stress Toy. 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. But, when Mr and Mrs Large fall asleep the little Larges put themselves to bed - and take the food with them. The illustrations in the book are very bright and colourful and give lots of highlights to the important points in the story.It can also help you understand that some worries are simply not yours at all and that while you may be concerned, you are not responsible. All online references have been selected on an illustrative basis for the relevant potential learning activities. You may also want to download Worry Box Transition Activity Pack to provide your students with more strategies to deal with their worries. There are lots of worries in the bag but none are talked about in too much detail, it would have been good to maybe name and explore some in a bit more detail at the end to help with sorting them into groups. It might be a friend, a grandparent, the people in their neighbourhood or even a stranger in another country.

It would have been good if there had been some talking points at the back of the story to help start a conversation about worries we might have and how we could be like the characters in the story. It would be a great book to use to introduce the idea of worried and anxiety to children, especially in the uncertain times we are facing at the moment. A recipe can be found here with good instructions on how to make a bubble wand - https://wredtedart. Reinforce the idea that it’s okay for your child to feel like this and that we all experience different emotions.

Although everything in Jenny’s life appears positive at the start of the story, her bag of worries grows bigger and bigger until the weight, the burden of her worries becomes too much to bear and she breaks down. The zoo send a series of unsuitable pets, revealed behind flaps in the form of crates and packing cases. If the children want to try some meditation, they could use the You Tube Floating Bubble Meditation - https://www. Arts and Culture: Taking part in arts and culture can help improve your mental health because it helps you to relax, express who you are and improve confidence and self-esteem through drama, literature, music and art.