Primary – Preschool Learning About Themselves

Preschool’s new unit falls und
er the theme of “Who We Are”. The children will come to an understanding that “Everyday we learn about who we are and what we can do”. The idea is that children build their self-identity and become aware of themselves; their strengths and weaknesses. They develop a better understanding of how we learn and gain an appreciation of the different emotions we demonstrate, and how this can affect our behaviour.

It is important for us to be mindful of how our brain works, how our feelings affect our well-being and affect our ability to learn.

In preschool we will spend time identifying different emotions, how they can affect us and explore possible strategies to cope with these feelings so that we can recognise and deal with conflict, solve problems and ensure we are in an ‘optimal state for learning’.

As part of SEL (Social and Emotional Learning) for this Unit of Inquiry, preschool will

• Make paintings of themselves to help reflect on what makes them special.
• Read stories related to different feelings and make personal connections
• Look at pictures of different people expressing different emotions, talk about facial gestures, how our bodies feel different when we are happy or scared, and the things we can do to cope with these feelings
• Share the things that make us feel, for example, scared, nervous, happy, sad, anxious and excited. Children will learn that we all have different perspectives and that it is important to accept this and try to accommodate for this.
• Do some simple role plays where we can explore different scenarios and ways to react in different situation
• Explore what it feels like to be calm and consider different ways in which we can make ourselves calm