Weekly Activity: Dealing With Worries

I hope you all had a great Mother’s Day and enjoyed some sunshine this weekend. This week’s activity is about worries. It’s natural to have more worries than usual during times of uncertainty, but some can be
unhelpful and lead to stress. Parents can help children express and cope with worries by doing this family activity together. Together as a family, write down worries and put them in a “worry box” for safe-keeping. You can talk about these worries and let each other know that they are not alone. Think about how we can look at these worries in a different way so that they are helpful and more comfortable. You can also re-visit these worries later if desired.

After the activity, debrief and tell each other how you feel:)

Hope to hear all about your activity!

Making A Worry Box: Calming Strategies for Anxious Kids – The ...

Weekly Activity: Move Your Bodies

I hope you are all settling into your new routines with online learning. It’s hard to believe that we have been in this COVID world for two months. Time has passed by slowly and quickly both at the same time.  For this week’s activity, I want to focus on physical activity. Moving our bodies has many benefits for our physical, mental, and emotional health. Build in big or small movement breaks throughout the day to decrease stress and increase fun!

How can we do this? Whenever possible, go outside to enjoy the fresh air. There are lots of ways to
get active that don’t require a lot of equipment or time. Use your imagination and interests to come up with your own activities or try some of these examples:

    • go for a hike (while social distancing)
    • skip rope
    • go on a scavenger hunt
    • toss a ball or play frisbee
    • have a family dance party
    • create a workout circuit
    • create an obstacle course

Please share some the ways that you and your family are moving your bodies. Don’t forget to stay safe and have fun!

Lots of Love,

Ms. Ball

Weekly Activity: Label Your Feelings

First, let’s take a moment to recognize what you are feeling. Close your eyes and pay attention to what is going on in your body and mind. Some days will be better than others. Some days, you’ll feel scared. Others days you’ll feel happy and motivated. It may change throughout the day.  And different people will have different feelings and reactions to the same information.

Why should we bother labeling our feelings? Clinical research has demonstrated that one way to help regulate your emotions is to identify them. In other words, once you can identify your feelings, it becomes easier to manage them. If you have multiple feelings at once, it can feel overwhelming. Try to focus on one emotion at a time and sit with it for five minutes. Let the feeling move through you and be present. Later on when you feel ready, sit with the next emotion and notice how it makes you feel.

Building an Emotional Vocabulary With Feeling Vocabulary

Weekly Activity: Expressing Gratitude

Hope you are all taking some time for yourselves to relax during this sunny weekend! This week’s activity is around gratitude. Expressing gratitude is something we can practice regularly in our daily lives to boost our well-being! Gratitude has powerful effects that help us feel more positive emotions, improve our health, and build strong relationships.

Make a collage of things in your environment that you are grateful for by drawing them on a piece of
paper. You could include things from your home, nature, or school. Draw all the things that you appreciate to make a colourful collage of your environment. After you’re done, hang it up somewhere at home so you can see your collage every day and think about all these things that are special and that you are grateful for.

Click HERE to see a video of me with my gratitude collage! I hope you enjoy it and share some of your own collages with me on the blog:)

 

 

 

Weekly Activity: Mindfulness

I hope you all had a great long weekend! This week’s activity is around mindfulness, meditation and being present. Daily practice of mindfulness meditation has shown improvement in sleep, lowering stress levels and better self-regulation.

Both parents and students are invited to join in this activity together. Find a quiet spot where you will be uninterrupted for 10 minutes. Follow the instructions and enjoy! If it feels unnatural at first, that is okay. If you lose focus or get caught up in your thoughts, forgive yourself, and then go back to breathing in through your nose, noticing the sensation of the air entering your nostrils and the feeling of expansion in your chest and/or belly, and then the release of the breath and the feeling of emptiness.

Please share how you felt after this activity in the comments section of this blog post:) Can’t wait to hear all about it!

Love, Ms.Ball

Welcome to Ms.Ball’s Blog

Welcome to Ms.Ball’s blog! On this blog, you will find many resources for both parents and students. Please take some time to look at some of the different sites provided.

I hope you are all doing well and staying safe. In times of uncertainty, it is natural to feel anxious. It’s important that we take the time to acknowledge what we are feeling and and take care of our own mental health. Check out the video below and see what changes you can make.

Some questions we can ask ourselves to check-in:

What am I currently feeling? What is something that I am doing that brings me hope and happiness? What is something that I want to try differently tomorrow?

I look forward to continue checking-in with my students via Office 365 Teams or by phone. Please do not hesitate to email me at diana.ball@burnabyschools.ca with any questions or concerns. I am missing you all and sending positive thoughts your way!

Love, Ms.Ball