Welcome!

Resilience is a person's ability to bounce back after disappointment, their capacity to recover from adversity, to get up when they stumble, to keep on trying. Resilience is a way of talking about a person's mental pliability, their emotional toughness.

Resilience is essential for both academic and social development. Unfortunately many students arrive at school with low levels of resilience. In order to achieve in the classroom and be happy in the playground, teachers must actively work to build children's resilience.

This blog was put together by an Edge Hill State School Professional Learning Community. It is an attempt to resource ourselves and our fellow teachers with information, inspiration and teachings tools on resilience.

You might like to start by looking at ACARA and Education Queensland documents, or these posts on understanding resilience.

You might also be interested in the topics under LABELS on the right hand side bar. 

Thanks for visiting.

How resilient are you?

Resilience is both taught and caught. How resilient are you?

A short quiz here.

Internal Weather Clock

My Internal Clock is a drawing using weather features to illustrate how a student is feeling.

Activity

• 1. Students are focusing on how they are feeling.  Allow students to relax and focus on their breathing ask them to breathe deeply into their belly, allowing their belly to rise and fall. If they get distracted that is okay go back to the raising of the breath.

• 2. Ask students to pay attention to how they are feeling on the inside.  What kind of weather features are you feeling now, are you feeling windy, stormy, raining on the inside or maybe a rainbow?  

• 3. Look inside and see what is there.  It may change one day the sky may be clear, the next may be cloudy.  You may feel stormy and restless inside right now remember later the sun may shine or maybe the sun will come out tomorrow. 

• 4. Check your internal weather again had it changed or stayed the same.  Can you draw your internal weather?  Try the exercise tomorrow and see how your weather may have changed. 

Using humour to combat maths anxiety

Kids may experience anxiety just knowing there is a lesson coming up, like maths.  If a Math Cartoon is shown at the beginning of a math lesson, a different perspective on mathematics will grow, reducing anxiety and encouraging laughter, fun and motivation.

How to use them:

• Use it as a quick opener for a new math concept being learnt.
• A scaffolding activity at the beginning of a lesson explaining the logic behind it.
• Kids can create their own math cartoon.                                                        
• Put these up on display in the classroom.

Using drawing to help children identify and understand their feelings

Superheroes- When students have a fear, ask them to create a superhero that can help fight that fear with them. Their superhero can have special powers, a super hero name and a special costume.

Worry Warrior- Create an imaginary creature or contraption to help gobble up their worries. You can use craft materials to make it, like boxes, to make it. Students can give it eyes, arms and legs and cut a mouth out of the box to put their worries in. Students feed their worry warrior with their worries. 

Colour my life- Give students a blank sheet of paper and a selection of coloured pencils or crayons. On one side of the paper, make a ‘key’ where students pick one colour to represent the different feelings they’ve had in their lifetimes (younger students may need a list of basic feelings to help them). The other side of the paper represents their life. Since we have feelings all the time, students have to fill up the entire paper, creating an abstract design using the colours they have chosen. They need to use all the colours from the key in whatever proportion they have felt in their life. 

Happy brain Worry brain- Draw two heads side by side onto a sheet of paper. Have students draw or collage the things that make them happy in the ‘happy brain’ and things they worry about in the ‘worry brain’.

Bubble Drawing- Ask students to draw a picture of themselves on a sheet of paper and then draw a bubble around their image. Ask them to write out all the things they feel they cannot control outside of the bubble. Then have them write all of the things they do have control over inside the bubble. Work with students to come up with a list of things they have some or full control of in their life. Their goal is to fill up the inside bubble and then ask students to focus on improving what’s in their control. Ask them what actions can take to influence the things inside the bubble. 

Mindfulness drawing- Gather blank paper, drawing materials and any favourite craft materials. Tape the paper to the desk. Students need to close their eyes. Ask students to check in with themselves and notice how their feelings feel in their body. Next, ask students to open their eyes and choose a coloured pencil. Close your eyes again and draw a continuous squiggle without lifting the pencil from the paper. Ask students to imagine the feeling expressing itself on the page. Students stop when the movement or expression feels complete. Students can also use their non-dominant hand if they want. Next, ask students to look at the squiggle they made and turn the paper side to side until they see an image emerge. Using other colours or materials, ask students to create the image they saw from the squiggle.

Indigo Dreaming: A Book of Meditations for Children

Indigo Dreaming: A Book of Meditations for Children by Amy Hamilton

This book contains 49 fully guided meditations for children age five to twelve.  It includes activities, tips and information on how to begin and end a meditation.  This book is easy to read and simple to use.  You simply read the meditations from the book to your class.  I have used it at different times throughout the school day.  It is particularly helpful if you class takes a long time to settle after breaks.

Self Esteem Game : Mirror Mirror

Learning Goal: 

To get the children to focus on a special skill or ability that they have.

Preparation:

Place a mirror in a box, facing up, so that when a person looks into the box, they see their reflection.

Content:

Explain to the children that the box contains a picture of the most important person here today.

Ask each child to come forward and have a look.  Caution them to keep a secret.  Of course, children see their own reflection.

After the last child has been up, ask them all to think of something that makes them special and different.  Explain that bragging and boasting is okay for this exercise and model the following procedure.