Inclusion
Mindfulness and Meditation
'Stop, Breathe, Think Kids' app - On this app your child can choose missions to help create their own force field of calm. They can use this app to check in with how they are feeling each day.
Cosmic Kids Yoga Youtube Channel - Cosmic Kids Channel is full of interactive yoga videos for children. These could be done daily as a time for mindfulness.
Emotions and Social Skills
www.elsa-support.co.uk - This website is full of resources to print or to use as ideas to support your child in a wide range of areas:
- to expand their vocabulary around emotions
- to recognise their own and others emotions
- to give them strategies to regulate their emotions
- to support their social skills and friendship development
- to help them boost their self esteem.
Board Games - Playing board games with your child will help develop social skills such as cooperative play, turn taking and learning to lose and win appropriately.
Memory
Memory plays a really important part of learning and it is really easy to improve!
Here are a few easy games you can play at home to train your memory:
- 'I went to the shop' - The aim of the game is to remember as many items as possible. The first player starts by saying 'I went to the shop and bought a ___' - identifying an item. The second player continues 'I went to the shop and bought a 1st person's item and a ___ - adding a new item. Continue taking turns to remember the items as the list gets longer and longer! You could vary this to different scenarios - for example 'I went on holiday and packed...' or 'I made a pizza and added...' or working through the alphabet for each item.
- 'What's missing?' - The aim of the game is to work out which items have been taken away! Place a number of items onto a tray or the table (the more items the trickier it will be!). For younger children start with 3-4 items and older children 5-6 items. Tell your child to have a close look at the items (you might need to name the items together!) - give them around 30 seconds to look. Cover the items with a tea towel and ask your child to close their eyes as you remove one item. Ask them to open their eyes, remove the cloth and tell you what's missing! Increase the number of items you remove as the game goes on!
- 'The Simon Game' - www.freesimon.org - This memory game uses light sequences. The coloured lights will flash in an increasing sequence. All your children need to do is click on the correct colours after they have lit up. See how many they can remember.
- 'Pairs' - Your child could make their own pairs cards or use any cards you have. Turn all the cards over (making sure there is 2 of each!) and then take turns to turn 2 cards over at a time. Remind your child to try and remember where the cards were if they weren't a match! See who can find the most amount of pairs!
- 'Visual Memory Quiz' - Show your child a page of a magazine or a picture containing numerous items. Give them around 30 seconds to 1 minute to look at it. Then take the image away and ask them to recall as many items as they can.