Dear Parents,
In this weeks Social Skills session we are covering the topic “Thinking thoughts and feeling feelings”. This topic focuses on the thoughts we have and how this can influence our feelings. It also focuses on how our thoughts and feelings can influence other people’s thoughts and feelings. This knowledge is another foundational skill to so many other aspects of children’s social lives, including having friends, working in a classroom and navigating different social situations.
In this session we aim to teach that our thoughts can influence how we feel – our good thoughts can make us feel happy, while bad thoughts can make us feel sad. This session also aims to teach that sometimes our thoughts and feelings can influence other people’s thoughts and feelings, and some of the thoughts and feelings that they might have about us depending on our actions.
As part of this activity, students will listen to the book Thinking Thoughts and Feeling Feelings and look at the pictures from the book. At the end, there is an activity for them to draw a thought that they might have (it could be favourite food, a pet, something that they like to do etc), and underneath this, draw how that thought makes them feel. There is also another Think Sheet that some students may wish to complete that further explores the topic.
During the week, it would be great to have discussions around thoughts and feelings and how these can impact other people. For example, if you’re asking your child to put their toys away and they don’t want to; explain how this makes you feel and the thoughts that you’re having about them (e.g. “I am thinking that you aren’t helping to pack up, this is making me feel sad”)
We hope the students enjoyed last weeks topic and have some fun with this one too. 🙂
Miss Walker (Speech Pathologist) and Miss Bruns (Occupational Therapist)
Please watch the following read aloud: