Sesame Street helping children who have experienced trauma

You may have heard about the fantastic work Sesame Street does to support children, including their inclusion of a character with autism on the show, and now they have announced a new portal on their website to support children who have been through traumatic experiences. Take a look - it's great.

Other activity portals featured by Sesame Street in Communities feature resources on dealing with bullying, grief, coping with incarceration and dealing with emergencies. It would be a great resource to use alongside Emotion Works with younger children.

More videos for Emotion Talks/ Building Resilience

The first video shows a tiny bird learning to gradually persevere to overcome their fears. It would be great to pause the video and create speech or thought bubbles for what the character is saying at different parts of the movie, including aspects of the sequencer. The signs are subtle, but you can see body sensations - for example, when the bird's tummy rumbles when he is scared, and the expressions on his face show him grow in confidence to becoming excited, proud and confident. I've added some screenshots under the video if you want to use some still images from the film - just right click to copy or save them.

 





This is a cute Christmas film, in which a snowman has to cope with the wait for Christmas:




This shows a character in a dangerous environment who is able to cope with the help of someone else:

Tumbleweed Tango from Humble + Postal on Vimeo.

Inspiring Videos

The Present from Jacob Frey on Vimeo.
This is a lovely little short animated film which would be great to use in class, and could be used in a variety of ways. You can also watch it here. There are ideas for writing at The Literacy Shed website. I think it would be great to use and refer to the Emotions Talk sequencer, as you see the range of emotions expressed by the main character, and you could discuss strategies for feeling better. It might be good to pause the video before the character opens the present and reflect on when we feel happy, then reflect on his reaction to the present. It also lends itself well for work on resilience and growth mindset.

You might have seen this on TV - It could be fantastic as a stimulus to discuss positive self talk. The Paralympics start on the 7th of September.

Brain Breaks Website

Helen recently recommended this fantastic website which is full of videos to show your class when they need a break - there are hundreds of interactive videos to choose from. You could use these to make your class think, energise them, get them moving or stretching, improve fitness or to calm down.
You'll need to register to access the videos, and you can then choose a class character which will evolve (level up) each time you watch a video. Take a look at GoNoodle.

Christmas videos on The Literacy Shed website

There are some great little video clips on the Literacy Shed website's Christmas page which could be used as stimulus for writing. The clip from The Chronicles of Narnia could be used alongside the book to look at how the author uses words to create a scene, and there are lots more. Not so sure about the Christmas version of the 3 Little Pigs though...
There's a spooky little wintery story below which is on the Literacy Shed's Ghostly page which I've used before to look at the emotion of fear and how to listen to our internal warning signs, although you might just want to look at the wintery street at the beginning. It's probably best for middle/ upper school - it's pretty scary!.

Anti-bullying week

There are fantastic video clips on the Literacy Shed website to base activities on during anti-bullying week. You can read teaching suggestions for the videos below on the Literacy Shed website on the Thinking Shed page. For all ages: For middle/ upper school: