Tuesday 1/22

We hope everyone had a nice long weekend!

We braved the cold and had a great morning recess.  The first graders even found icicles!!

We ended the day with Open Circle.

In today's Open Circle Meeting, we talked about feeling words. Everyone has feelings, and all feelings are okay — even though some feelings make us feel better than others. Feelings are inside us, but sometimes we can tell how someone is feeling by how they look or what they do. We made a list of many feeling words, such as excited, happy, sad, surprised, calm, and upset.

Ask your child to name as many feeling words as he/she can remember. Look at a magazine or newspaper with your child and try to identify the feelings people pictured in articles or ads might have. Use feeling words at home to name how you and other family members are feeling.

Body language is a way of communicating with our faces, bodies, or hands instead of using words. We practiced using body language to communicate with each other by using facial expressions and gestures to show that we were cold, afraid, or feeling great. Body language helps us to understand how people are feeling even if they are not telling
us with words.

Make a game of noticing body language when you are out with your child. Try to guess how people might be feeling from their gestures, facial expressions, and other body language. You might also watch a television show or look at a magazine with your child and take turns pointing out the examples of body language that you see.

Literature Connections

Here are some books that relate to the topics we discussed in Open Circle. You might want to check out one or two at the library and read with your child:

Cain, Janan. The Way I Feel. Parenting Press, 2000.
Through art and rhyme, the author describes a range of feelings, from anger and sadness to frustration and fear.

Evans, Lezlie. Sometimes I Feel Like a Storm. Mondo Publishing, 2007.
This book describes all kinds of feelings from proud to sad to angry.

Kachenmeister, Cheryl. On Monday When it Rained. Houghton Mifflin, 2001.
Different scenarios illustrated by photographs describe one boy’s different emotions over a period of seven days.

Menchin, Scott. Taking a Bath with a Dog. Candlewick, 2007.
A little girl asks a variety of characters what makes them happy, and then she comes up with her own list of positive thoughts.

Raschka, Chris. Yo! Yes? Scholastic, Inc., 1993.
Two boys communicate using body language and very few words.

Rotner, Shelley. Lots of Feelings. Millbrook Press, 2003.
Close-up photographs of children’s faces illustrate a range of emotions.