![MWFB_Logowide_white [Converted]-01.png](https://static.wixstatic.com/media/70c992_e4beebc4d9fa4715b2f9209f176d498d~mv2.png/v1/fill/w_342,h_60,al_c,q_85,usm_0.66_1.00_0.01,enc_auto/MWFB_Logowide_white%20%5BConverted%5D-01.png)
Story School
Story School - Week 5
Welcome to the fifth week of Story School!
We're so glad you and your child are here to join us for Story School. If you haven't had the chance, be sure to introduce yourself and your child on our Family Learning Space.
Each week, we will focus our learning around specific early literacy and language skills as well as social emotional skills that prepare your child to thrive in school and beyond. We'll have a big message and big question to discuss together. Reflect on the message and question, and then follow the steps below throughout the week.
Our message this week is Words make the world better. Talking about feelings teaches children that their feelings and the feelings of others are important. When children have the words to express how they feel, they are better able to identify and manage their emotions. Our question is How can words help us look after each other’s hearts?
Our message this week
Words make
the world
better.
Our question this week
How can words
help us look after
each other's hearts?
Step 1: Watch the Story Lesson
Step 2: Join our Live Learning Group
Check your email for the exact time and date, as well as a link, for your group's online Story Hour.
Step 3: Homework on the
Make Way for Books App
This week, we’re learning how children develop emotional literacy, the ability to navigate their own emotions and recognize the feelings of others. Your homework is to make a feelings cube! Happy, sad, angry, silly— roll the dice and see!
Continue learning with the Make Way for Books App. Here are our suggestions for the week. Don’t forget to follow your child’s interests and explore, mix and match, and most of all, have fun learning!
If you don't have the app yet, you can download it now!
Read Now on the app!
Make a feelings cube
Do
Make a Feelings Cube and use it to talk with your children about emotions!
Materials: Tissue box, Markers, Pencil, Scissors, Glue stick and Paper
Directions:
-
Invite your preschooler to help you if they are interested. If not, you can make the Feelings Cube yourself.
-
Trace each of the sides of the tissue box on a piece of paper.
-
Cut the piece of paper.
-
Draw the emotion or feeling you want to include for each side of the box.
-
You can invite your preschooler to help you choose the feelings and to show you what the face will look like when it is happy, angry, sad, scared, worried or surprised. Your preschooler may even want to help draw the face.
-
Glue the drawing to each of the sides of the box.
Play with the Feelings Cube with your child. It can be rolled like a die in a dice game. Your child can roll it across a table or on the floor and identify the emotion that is pictured on the top of the cube. You and your child can talk about that feeling, make faces that show that feeling, discuss times when you might feel that way, or make up a story or song about that feeling.
What your child is learning
-
To express and recognize feelings
-
To express care and concern for others
-
To use language for different purposes
Emotions chart
Do
Make an emotions chart with your preschooler to help you both understand how they feel.
On a piece of paper, draw several large circles. In each circle, draw a face expressing a different emotion (think emojis!): happy, sad, scared, tired, angry. You and your child can decide on other feelings to include: maybe silly, anxious, frustrated or laughing.
Display the chart where your child can easily access it, maybe on the refrigerator or in their bedroom. When your child is expressing any of the emotions on the chart, you can point to the corresponding face and say, “Maybe you’re feeling frustrated right now because your blocks keep falling down.”
As your child becomes accustomed to the chart, ask them to point to the face that they are feeling. Then, you can have a conversation together to name that emotion and come up with next steps if the situation needs to be addressed. By naming emotions, you are giving your child a tool that will help them develop self-regulation rather than inappropriate expressions of their feelings, tantrums or melt-downs. Emotions can be strong and scary. The emotions chart can be a way to keep things calmer and learn to name feelings.
What your child is learning
-
To manage behavior with your support
-
To describe feelings
-
New words
If You're Happy and You Know It
Do
Sing "If You're Happy and You Know It" to guide you into exploring other emotions with your child. Talk to your child about the different emotions that they experience. Explore ways that we react to our emotions. Are these rections healthy or unhealthy? Explore healthy ways to cope with our emotions and then incorporate them into the song.
"If you're angry and you know it take a deep breath.
If you're angry and you know it take a deep breath.
If you're angry and you know it then your face with surely show it.
If you're angry and you know it take a deep breath."
What your child is learning
Singing and dancing are learning! By singing and dancing with your child, you are helping them develop important literacy, language, social-emotional, and motor skills. Music introduces your child to the new sounds and meanings of words and fosters comprehension skills as lyrics, rhythms, and movements are repeated.
Read it again
Do
Read your child's favorite book over and over again!
Reading a book over and over may allow for your child to memorize the story. Encourage your child to try and retell the story on her own!
What your child is learning
As adults, we might get "sick" of the reading the same story over and over, but children actually benefit from repetition! Neural connections are formed in a child's brain when you interact with them, and repetition of the same activity or action helps strengthen that connection, making it much more stable and strong.
Step 4: Keep track of your child's learning
As you complete each activity or read a book together, your child is learning and gaining important early reading skills! Be sure to mark each activity and book "done" to add them to your child's learning journal in the app and keep track of their growth!
First, make sure to add a child in the app's settings page. When you mark a book or activity done, you will see a screen the one on the left that will give you the option to add it to your child's learning journal. Add a note, new vocabulary words, and a picture!
Step 5: Reflect and connect with families
What did you learn this week?
Join us on our Family Learning Space to post your pictures and videos and to connect with other Story School parents and caregivers.
We want to hear from you! Use the our Family Learning Space to share your thoughts, talk about your experiences, and ask questions!