A month's worth of activities!

I re-discovered lots more violent metaphors yesterday and one particularly brought back some wonderful memories of spending time with Di Margetts. Di has some 'interesting' sayings in my opinion and one I hold on to is an alternative to the idea of flogging a dead horse – just a tad violent!!!!
Instead, Di offered, ‘If the horse is dead it’s time to dismount’. Wise words indeed!
Some of you might be familiar with Dead Horse Theory – if not, you might find the attached interesting and maybe even funny if it weren't so true.

Day 19 Activity: Feeling Dice Activity
Ann has supplied today’s activity which involves some cutting and sticking - Thanks again Ann

Ann's on a bit of 'a roll' at the moment - see what I did there? If not, take a look at yesterday's activity :lol:
As you might have noticed the Protective Behaviours process is not linear – it is circular, has lots of connecting parts and goes round and round. Some people find this frustrating as they like the idea of ‘if you do this, then you do this, then it’s done’.
So, in the spirit of connections, today’s activity from Ann builds on yesterday’s and invites you to annotate a Jenga-type tower building set to produce ‘Feelings Blocks’.
The information needed to make this is included on page 2 below - what a great way to build emotional literacy while having fun and playing

I just re-discovered an Emoji feelings chart I made a while back to accompany my Feelings Tower game - here for you to add to your collection if you like it :woohoo:

Day 21 Activity:
Time for a trip down 'Memory Lane' perhaps?
When I was growing up we used to make 'Fortune Tellers' by folding paper - seemed easy at the time.
Ann has taken this idea, renamed the paper creation 'Finger Flickers' and included Protective Behaviours content. There are 3 versions so far and Ann has kindly shared her 'Protective Interruption Finger Flicker' for today's activity :kiss:

Please contact Ann via Ann@protectivebehaviourstraining.co.uk if you'd like to find out more about the PB toolkit resource - it's a treasure trove of PB activities in my opinion.

Day 22 Activity:
Hoping you enjoyed making your PB 'Finger Flickers' and they didn't wear out too quickly!
Today's activity provides another opportunity to use your fingers and comes courtesy of Judith - a beautiful act of kindess by an amazingly creative individual - Thank You for caring and sharing :kiss:

Playdough Power
I learned a new word this week – ‘polysensorial’. As well, having given up trying to buy flour in shops, I had a massive 16kg bag of flour delivered, and promptly set about making batches of playdough for all the families with young children on my street. I began to think about the polysensorial aspects of playdough. The playdough recipe I use is very simple and low-mess to make (recipe to follow). I delivered the batches to my neighbours whilst it was still hot. I added colour, glitter, even one batch had some unicorn hot pink washing up liquid in it! Some had essential oil, others had a few sprinkles of cocoa powder.
If we endeavour to promote children’s understanding of feelings and emotions, we need to firstly help the very young to develop an awareness of their senses, their physical interactions with the world around them, and to explore and discover which scents/flavours/textures/sounds/colours etc appeal to them, or don’t. What better product to enable this pathway of inquiry perhaps than playdough?
Teaching in early years, I so often see the malleable play table set up with playdough and rolling pins, cookie cutters and a plethora of other apparatus. In actual fact, playdough as a standalone can be a wonderful material for children to explore with – pinch, pull, push, prod, squeeze, knead. And if the playdough is scented or coloured, even more to explore. The photo accompanying this post is of a little girl who lives a few doors away. Her mother let her find the playdough on the doorstep and enjoy the surprise of opening the package. Her playdough appears marbled – this is because the food colouring was added after the water was mixed in. To create a uniform colour, you can add it to the water before stirring it into the dry ingredients. As well, hers has sparkly glitter in (although glitter is not very earth-nurturing whereas the rest of the playdough is biodegradable).
Finally, aware of the therapeutic element of playing with it, I made a batch of playdough for my 14 year old daughter’s friend who is very unwell with a mental health issue currently. In fact, having written all this, I may just go and make myself a batch now….. ?


Recipe:
Mix in a large saucepan 2 cups of plain flour, 1 cup of table salt, 1 teaspoon of cream of tartar and 2 tablespoons of oil (vegetable or sunflower). Put over a med-high heat, and pour in 2 cups of boiling water from the kettle, stir for about 15 seconds, and then remove from heat. Continue stirring and then knead by hand when safely cool enough. Will keep for days in a sealed tub or bag.

Add whatever you like either during or after cooking in terms of colours/scents. Whatever will appeal to whomever the playdough is for!