Health and Wellbeing

GIRFEC

Getting it Right for Every Child.

In our nursery we  place our children at the centre of our thoughts, planning and action. Everything we do is centred around the child.

SHANARRI – Adventure Ted

We use our friends Super Max and Adventure Ted to send out with our children to better their understanding of our “SHANARRI” wheel. They go on lots of adventures with our children and allow them to be Active, Respected and Responsible, Included, Safe, Healthy, Achieving, Nurtured and Active.

Mini Balloon Emotions

Create these characters and allow your child to express different emotions!

Resources: Balloons, flour, pen (If you don’t have flour you can always use playdough!)

Activity: Add some flour to your balloon and tie it at the bottom to make sure none of the flour falls out! Draw a face and a different emotion on each balloon! You can use the balloons to describe how you are feeling! See how many emotions you can make!

Fun Toothbrushing

During our time in lockdown many of our routines have changed. For some families it might be a bit of a challenge getting our wee people to brush their teeth for two minutes twice a day.

Here are some helpful fun ideas.

· Be a good role model and let children see you brushing your teeth. Do it together or even let them practice on you.

· Let them brush their dolls or teeth.

· Let them watch you brush your pet dog’s teeth if you have one.

· Let them choose their own toothbrush and flavoured children’s toothpaste.

· Let them choose their two minute song or use a sand timer or stopwatch.

· Be creative and invent a story about the imaginary “sugar bugs” or “sticky plaque” and how our wee people can defend their teeth with a toothbrush and toothpaste.

Activities

Teeth

· Let your child draw and cut out two shapes of teeth.

· Draw a happy and sad face on each one.

· Cut out healthy and unhealthy pictures of food and stick onto the happy or sad face.

Playdough Teeth

  • Make playdough using the recipe from our blog and add red or pink colouring if you have any.
  • · Using dried peas or similar, or even some stones from the garden pretend they are teeth and count twenty teeth. Ten on top and ten on the bottom.

Memory Game

Abracadabra!!!

In your home, pick three things that are really familiar to the child that they are able to recognise and name.

Place these items on the floor in a row and take a cloth or blanket and cover the items up

Wave your hands over the cloth and say “Abra-ca-dabra!” and as you lift up the cloth, grasp one of the items in your hand (so that only two items remain on the ground). Now ask your child to guess which item is missing. Let him peek inside of the cloth to see if he’s right!

Fun Hand Scrubbing

Handwashing is an easy way to prevent the spread of germ. We all play an important role in teaching children to wash their hands regularly and properly.

Handwashing should become a lifelong healthy habit if we start teaching children at an early age. And everyone learns better if it’s made fun.

Here are fun ideas to help explain to children the importance of handwashing.

A fun experiment to do with your child to demonstrate the importance of washing your hands.

Place water in a bowl and add pepper. Your child dips their fingers in having washed their hands with just water…watch!

Now your child adds soap to their fingers and tries again….da da daaaa!

Such a simple and effective demonstration of how washing with soap helps to get rid of germs.

Children learn by imitating the behaviours of adults, therefore we have to set a good example.

Body Games and Movements

It is important that children understand the names of the body parts for a variety of reasons:

  • Learning to wipe their nose or put their feet into their shoes..
  • Sharing what part of the body might be making them feel unwell.
  • It also helps them to identify what parts of the body they are using in a variety of physical activities.

Our wee people learn to develop many skills through the power of play.

Try singing this song and do the actions with your child to see if they can recognise and name the body parts!

HEAD, SHOULDERS KNEES AND TOES

Head, shoulders, knees and toes, knees and toes

Head, shoulders, knees and toes, knees and toes

And eyes and ears and mouth and nose

Head, shoulders, knees and toes, knees and toes.

Activity

Draw around your child onto old wallpaper or something similar and encourage them to colour and decorate. Talk about the different parts of the body. If there are siblings then they could join in. Afterwards you could discuss how we are all different and unique.

Once this is complete they could cut off the legs, feet, arms. hands and so on.

Hang the body part onto a wall or door.

Direct your blindfolded child in this direction and ask them to guess where they would attach the different body parts using blu tak or sellotape

 

 

Go On A Safari

Go outside on an exciting adventure and try picking up a small rock, plant, or flower!

Notice the different bugs all around you. Take a few moments to watch what they are doing. Even sit on the ground beside them and follow what they are up to.

Be mindful of everything around you and pay close attention! Try and be very quiet and take in all of the wonderful things around you! Smells, sights, feelings!

Animal Workout

Lets see if you can get moving and sounding like our animals!

For 30 seconds, ask your child to move around in a clear-spaced area and imitate an animal!

Try and do as many of these as you can.. If you can do them all, why don’t you get creative and try and think of some animal moves and sounds by yourself?

Frog Hops

Elephant Stomps

Bear Walks

Gorilla Shuffles

Starfish Jumps

Cheetah Run

Chicken Arms

Turtle Crawls

Kangaroo Jumps

Bunny Hops

Horse Gallops

Worm Wiggles

 

Healthy Minds

Look after yourselves everyone. On Thursdays at 4pm a lovely wee mindfulness activity on YouTube. Click on link below.

Here is the link below:

https://youtu.be/mwFmn8ntnLw

Why not go for a walk… play I Spy

Have some fun and join in!

 Below are some useful links to keep your child’s mental and physical health and wellbeing active!
Jo Wick’s Kids Workouts –
Cosmic Kids Yoga –

Here are some activities for you to try to keep your body and your mind active!

 

Jigsaw Jenie

We use Jigsaw Jenie in the nursery setting to talk about our feelings. To calm us, interest us, help us learn and to think!

Jigsaw Jenie would like to say hello to everyone! She has a little activity she would like you to do. Jenie wants to take you on a flight to the FUTURE!

Activity 1

Your adult could help you by creating a box containing picture word cards of jobs done by adults. Explain to your child that they are now an adult and they need to have a job. Let your child pick out one of the cards and act out the job.

Examples of jobs: Teacher, Policeman/Policewoman, Firefighter, Chef, Vet, Shop Assistant, Pilot, Doctor, Nurse, Athlete, Dancer, Artist, Scientist, Bus Driver

Resources: Picture cards, toys, story books, dress up –  If you do not have any picture cards at home you could even use toys to demonstrate the job or story books so that the child has an understanding of the job role. This can be done inside or outside! Your child could dress up and really look the part!

 

 

Activity 2

Everybody finds things a little tricky sometimes, even Jigsaw Jenie! But we should never give up and we should always keep trying our best until we can do it!

Have a little think of things that you may find tricky. This is going to become your goal. Keep practicing and trying to become better at it.  You could write down your ideas on a poster. You can draw a picture, get an adult helper to help you display your goal!
Your goal might be riding your bike, being able to run really fast, eat some new foods.  It can be anything you want it to be! Keep practicing!
Resources: Pen, pencil, paper to write down your goal!

Feel free to add comments and take pictures that you can pass onto us!

Adventure Ted

SHANARRI – Adventure Ted

We use our friends Super Max and Adventure Ted to send out with our children to better their understanding of our “SHANARRI” wheel. They go on lots of adventures with our children and allow them to be Active, Respected and Responsible, Included, Safe, Healthy, Achieving, Nurtured and Active.

Activity 1

The next wellbeing indicator that we are helping Adventure Ted understand is how to keep himself SAFE.

Can you help Adventure Ted find five things in your home or garden that are safe or unsafe?  Get someone you live with to help you.

You could use the traffic light code to help him.

Green    For   SAFE          👍 😊✅

Red.       For   DANGER.  👎 ☹️❌

Think of someone who you could ask for help if you are needing help or feeling upset.

It could be someone you live with or someone who works in the nursery or in the community.        👷👮

You could draw or paint a picture of being safe, or of someone who helps you at home or in the community and share it on our blog.

Be safe and happy 😊

 

 

Activity 2

Traffic Light Game

 I hope you are keeping safe and well.  We are still thinking about the wellbeing indicator of how to keep ourselves Safe

We thought that The Traffic Light game would be a good suggestion for using up all that extra energy.  When we exercise, we keep our body fit, and we feel happy afterwards 

The Traffic Light Game is an activity that all the children love to play in the nursery.

You can play this game indoorsin the garden or when you are out walking or cycling.  You can adapt it to suit yourselves.

You don’t need any resources, but you could get the children to colour traffic light signs from paper or card and stick onto a stick. Or you could use scarfs, welly boots, sun hats, bats or any other coloured props to signal your command.

How to play: 

Explain to the child what the commands are;

 

Red                              Stop

Amber/Yellow              Run on the spot

                                    In the nursery we say Get Ready!

Green                           Go

Speed bump                 Jump and carry on

Traffic Jam                Walk or slowly jog

Reverse Parking          Walk Backwards

Breakdown                   Lie Down Until Rescued

 

This will encourage your children to use their senses.  It will develop their listening and talking skills, turn-taking and introduce them to the early stages of Road Safety.

When you are outdoors you could encourage your children to recognise road safety signs

Enjoy and have lots of fun!

 

Struggling to get a bedtime routine. Click on the link below to download a printable activity.
My Bedtime Routine UK – Big Life Journal (1)