Emotion Rocks

Emotional Literacy

This idea is credited to the amazing mama at Our Feminist Playschool. I am a HUGE fan of the learning opportunities she provides for her son and I'm always anxious to read her next post.To learn more about how she made her Emotion Rocks read http://ourfeministplayschool.ca/emotional-literacy-rocks/

O and I went outside to collect and clean our rocks, which became a project that O really enjoyed. Adam helped us access the 'emoticons'. Then we were stuck for finding Modge Podge in Shanghai; a craft product for decoupage that I have never used. A recipe online proved cheap and simple, so we set out to make our own. The result was likely too clumpy and the quantities produced mountains of Modge Podge, but it worked well. We also bought a clear, acrylic paint to protect the paper faces from drool!

Homemade Modge Podge
~1 1/2 cups flour
~1/2 cup sugar
~1/4 teaspoon oil
~1 cup water
On medium low heat, combine water, oil and sugar, stirring until dissolved. Slowly whisk in flour to desired consistency (liquidy pancake). Continue to stir and cook without boiling (avoid clumping!) for 5-10 minutes. Store in airtight container and refridgerate.

We did not refrigerate ours and by the next morning, it became a bubbling science experiment!

O can demo a 'happy' and 'shad' (sad!) face and yawns when she see's the 'bored' emoticon!

EXPAND ON EMOTIONS
Puppetry; We have noticed if O's Bear or Owl puppets are putting on a show, she is all eyes & ears! Use puppets or stuffed animals to re-inact a highly emotional event taking place in your house!

Picture Box: Have your children cut faces out of magazines. Set aside all the misc. photos that just aren't making it into a photo album (or the millions of doubles that have no home) Throw all the cut-outs and photos into a box for chit chat about facial expressions and emotions. Even tiny ones can imitate faces, if they cannot yet name the emotion.