Exploring Emotional Literacy

Emotional literacy is the ability to recognise, understand and express our emotions, which isn’t always easy to do! At Cart Mill we’re always thinking of creative ways we can explore our feelings and emotions and ways to share them with each other.

A very special visitor came to see us today!

We decided “Roary” looked “a wee bit sad cause he didn’t have anyone to play with.” And “he Roars because he’s sad and a wee bit angry”. Roary asked us “How are you feeling today?”
“I’m happy cause I’m playing with my friends”.

”I’m happy too”.

”I’m tired”.

“I’m a wee bit sad because I miss my mummy”.

Chatting to Roary sparked the idea of making our own puppets. Having a wee look around our Studio, we found lots of interesting things we could use!

“I’m using the bottle”. “I cutted it’s hair”. “Mines needs long hair like me”. “I maked eyebrows on mine and a nose”. “I drawed a smiley face cos I’m happy”.

“Angry face. I want goggley eyes on mine. He’s a wee bit angry”.
“I want goggley eyes too. Mine is angry. He’s in bed cos he’s tired”.

“Sad face”

”happy”

“I think he’s a wee bit sad. Maybe he’s tired”

”happy”.
Some of our puppets were very friendly and decided to sing, chat and dance with each other, sometimes we even used a special silly voice!

If we’re feeling a little shy, puppets are a fantastic vehicle to express our feelings and emotions, develop our language, social and emotional skills, explore creativity and build our self confidence. It encouraged us to communicate with each other, share our thoughts and ideas, lose our inhibitions and build on our relationships. As we created our puppets, we entered into our “flow state”, meaning we were so engrossed in our activity that we lost track of everything else around us! This can be very therapeutic and calming and an excellent way to regulate and reset.