Exploring Our Positive Emotions

 

We all hope that our children will live lives that are full of Positive Emotions. In Autahi, we've been exploring feelings like joy, awe and excitement. How will we recognise them in ourselves and others? What experiences and people trigger these feelings for us? 

We know that the benefits of experiencing Positive Emotions are more far-reaching that simply feeling good for a while. Research tells us that frequently experiencing Positive Emotions contributes to a lasting sense of well-being: 'things are generally going well for me'. This is associated with being more socially connected, productive and physically healthy, too. This may be due to the 'broaden and build' theory (Fredrickson, 2002, 2004). This is based on the idea that negative experiences carry a perceived threat, causing us to narrow our focus, close down our attention and behave more defensively. Conversely, positive experiences cause us to engage in a more expansive and open way with our environment, allowing more curious, creative and flexible thinking.

As ever in Autahi, picture books have helped us to begin to tease apart the different kinds of Positive Emotions so that we can better identify and name what we're feeling. How Do I Feel?, with it's beautiful illustrations, is a great resource for this.

We also shared some stories in which characters experience Positive Emotions. In both cases, these feeling are prompted by doing something they love.

We asked our Autahi children to reflect on times when they experience Positive Emotions. Knowing what prompts Positive Emotions for us gives us the ability to seek out more of these experiences. Here are some of their ideas.

It is exciting to see them beginning to grapple with more nuanced vocabulary to describe their emotions, such as proud, calm, joyful and peaceful. It is also clear that they are able to recall moments when they have experienced Positive Emotions. Family, favourite toys and time spent in the natural world are themes. There is lots of inspiration here for how we can foster more Positive Emotions in our days.

Emotions and Athletics

This week Autahi joined up with our friends down the hallway in Tautoru to have a go at some athletics. As part of our P.E programme we have been practicing throwing, catching and running. These fundamental skills help us with our body movement and balance.

After this experience we associated with some emotions that we felt as we gave these activities our best try. Check out some of the amazing Autahi writers!

 

We are explorers of ... the beach!

 

This term, our Inquiry has focussed on creatures that live in the ocean. Living close to the sea, our students already have ideas about the creatures that live there. Watching Octonauts on TV has definitely had an impact, too! We have been trying to build on their knowledge and experiences by exploring some animals in detail.

Our Autahi students have been particularly interested in finding out more about some of the larger, charismatic creatures like octopuses and sea stars. A trip down to Worser Bay Beach is a chance to focus on some of the smaller creatures that inhabit the ocean. 

It's also a great opportunity to reconnect with this part of our local environment. As so often happens in Autahi, playing and exploring go hand in hand, and lead to some great learning. 

On the sand, we quickly began to find sea glass and a few pieces of pumice and mussel shells. We've been learning about the gruesome and fascinating way that octopuses eat mussels: had an octopus eaten the mussels out of these shells?

We started to make a collection of our finds along the wall.

Turning over a large log revealed sand hoppers, leaping about and shy beetles burying themselves back in the sand.

In the rock pools, we found no fewer than thirteen small crabs in quite a short time. There were also cat's eyes, a whelk and several different seaweeds. 

We hope to pay a return visit to the beach before the end of the term.  As the water warms up and Spring progresses, it will be interesting to see whether we find different creatures this time.

In the meantime, we will keep building our knowledge of the creatures that live in the ocean.

Thanks to all our parent helpers who helped to make this trip possible - and also so much fun. 

Fun with shapes

 This week Autahi have been exploring the world of shapes. In the first year at school children learn all about the different attributes that shapes have like sides, corners and size.

We explore some familiar shapes like rectangles, squares, circles and triangles and learn to sort them by their different attributes.

As a part of this exploration we also look at how shapes can connect together to make new shapes or even create a picture.

Check out what some of our shape artists have cooked up...

What kinds of shapes do you have around at home? What could they turn into?