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Back to School season is the perfect opportunity to spend some time with your new class developing their social emotional skills. Creating a positive learning environment and building meaningful connections is an important thing to focus on during your first few weeks with your new kids. By helping your kids develop a sense of self-awareness, your new class will hopefully grow into confident learners who can talk more easily about their emotions.
A great way to develop your kids’ emotional literacy is through books! Children can usually relate to the characters in the books and stories also provide your kids with a safe way to discuss emotions and situations that may make them feel a bit uncomfortable.
In this blog post, I have summarised my top 5 books that are fantastic at generating discussions around emotions as well as growth mindset.
The Koala Who Could written by Rachel Bright is an amusing rhyming story about dealing with change and all the worries that go along with that. In this story, the main character Kevin likes everything to stay the same. As the story goes on, Kevin learns what might happen if he faces his fears and tries something new.
This book is fantastic when used to discuss the different emotions that the main character, Kevin, is feeling. Kevin’s emotions clearly change throughout the story and are great discussion points when introducing new emotions and their vocabulary to your kids. You can buy your own copy of this fantastic read here.
Ruby’s Worry written by Tom Percival is a thoughtful story about anxiety. This story features the main character, Ruby, who has a worry which follows her around. At the first, the worry is small but then it begins to grow. The main takeaway from this story is how a problem shared is a problem halved.
Ruby’s Worry is a great stimulus for discussing how important it is to talk about our worries. An activity my class tried out with this book was thinking of different questions to ask the main character, Ruby. I found this really got them thinking about how to talk about their worries as well as help encourage their classmates to talk about their worries too! Ruby's Worry is available to purchase here.
Perfectly Norman also written by Tom Percival is a story all about individuality. This book features the main character, Norman who suddenly develops wings! At first, Norman loves his wings and has so much fun but then he begins to worry about what people might think so he decides to hide what makes him special.
Perfectly Norman is a fantastic example of how hiding what makes you special can also make you unhappy. This story is a great stimulus for encouraging your kids to think about what makes them special. You can shop for your own copy of this book here.
The Worrysaurus written by Rachel Bright is another story about dealing with anxiety and worries. This story sees the main character, Worrysaurus plan a fun picnic. However, it is not long before he begins to worry about the things that might go wrong. As the story goes on, Worrysuarus remembers how to make himself feel less worried about the unknown. If you think this book would suit your kids you can grab it here.
This story is great for helping your children come up with strategies on how to face their fears and feel less worried about things. An activity my kids loved was drawing their own “little tin” with “happy things within”.
Rosie Revere Engineer written by Andrea Beaty is a story about dealing with failure and developing a growth mindset. This book sees the main character, Rosie Revere who is an amazing inventor of exciting contraptions try to build a flying machine for her Great Aunt. However, she cannot get her machine to fly! This story is all about how important it is to never give up and keep on trying when something is tricky.
Rosie Revere Engineer is a fantastic book to start off a discussion about growth mindset and what your kids should do if they find something challenging. Just click here to purchase your own copy.
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