Welcome to
EMOTION WORKS
HOME LEARNING
from Claire Murray, creator of the Emotion Works Programme and founder of Emotion Works CIC
It’s a pleasure to welcome all schools, pupils, parents and families to this website to help keep Emotion Works learning happening at home during the January 2021 Lockdown.
As we all continue to adjust and adapt to the impact of the pandemic on our lives, at Emotion Works we’re very aware that more school closures and another Lockdown situation will mean we’ll all be taking a ride on our Emotional Coronacoasters again with the highs and lows, and twists and turns that will bring.
But at Emotion Works we also know that staying connected, noticing and talking about our emotions and their triggers, and finding ways to manage them helps both children and adults alike to stay positive and mentally well.
We hope that this website and the other sources of support we will be providing during school closures will help ensure that these important things can still happen at home despite the challenges of Lockdown, and that we continue to build a sense of resilience in ourselves and our children across the Emotion Works community.
Please note: This website will have most meaning to schools, pupils and families already using and familiar with Emotion Works. However, if the activities seem helpful to others then please feel free to explore and make use of the ideas with our compliments.
Following the school closure announcements on the 4th January we checked in with Emotion Works teachers on social media about how we can help with Emotion Works learning at home.
The suggestions and requests offered helped us make a start with this website plan, and then via a Zoom chat on the 7th (with over 70 attendees) we were able to firm up on the nature of the website – an open platform that can be accessed directly by pupils and families from home.
At the time of writing (20th January) we now have…
- A home/landing page with links to the activity pages
- An activity page with cog videos and ideas to help pupils share their learning about the cogs so far with parents and family
- A ‘themed activity’ page using a Fischy Music song as a stimulus with related ideas for Early, First and Second level
- Coming soon – a ‘themed activity’ page using a literacy/ story stimulus
In addition to the website we can confirm we’ll keep going with our usual sources of membership support for Emotion Works schools including…
- Our Main Website members area for full members, and Recovery Programme Website for #EWrecovery members remain live.
- Keep an eye out on the main website events diary for Zoom networking meetings
- Our members only ‘Emotion Works Practitioners’ facebook group is an excellent forum for connecting with others also using Emotion Works, and there is already lots of sharing happening around home learning for Emotion Works. (Please answer the membership questions to gain access otherwise we will have to decline your request)
- We will also keep members updated with Emotion Works home learning news via our members newsletters – sometimes these are filtered to junk mail, so do check your junk mail box if you haven’t been receiving these and mark as ‘not junk’.
- Our twitter page is open to all – you can follow us at @emotionworksCIC or take a look when you need some #EWhomelearning inspiration. If you tweet from your school or personal account during school closures please tag us as @emotionworksCIC and use the #EWhomelearning hashtag.
- The Emotion Works Main Facebook page is also open to all, and we’ll be posting updates and #EWhomelearning news there throughout the school closure period too.
- You are also welcome to use the comment boxes on this website to ask questions, make suggestions, upload photos of work or share your own ideas with other teachers and parents.
If your child’s school is using Emotion Works as a resource for supporting Emotional Learning and Wellbeing it’s likely they will have sent you the link to this website as a source of home learning activities and ideas. We’ve designed the website so you can engage with it directly with your child, and probably older pupils will be able to use it independently.
The different Emotion Works ‘Cogs’ that we refer to will already have been introduced to your child at school so you can check in with them about what each of them represents. We teach the different cogs at different levels, depending on a child’s age and stage. A very brief overview of each cog and how we teach Emotion Works at different levels is provided in this information document.
On this website we will be sharing themed activities that can be used across all Primary stages, along with specific activities at each level linked to the theme. The first theme is based around a popular Fischy Music song called ‘Keep the Blues Away’. The song is provided as a video to watch and listen to and then, in a slideshow that can be played on-screen, the lyrics are explored and activities are suggested for us feeling upbeat and positive. We then provide ideas for further learning tasks that could work well as part of a home learning day. Your child’s teacher may also provide related or alternative tasks linked to the theme.
As the weeks progress, and if school closures continue, we’ll continue to add more themes and learning activities to support you and your child with Emotion Works learning at home.
Please feel free to use the comment boxes on this website to connect with us and to provide any ideas or suggestions you might have that would be useful for others to try too. Your children may also like to share a comment or a photo of their work in the comment box, which we’d be very happy to give a like to and offer our encouragement (we’re hoping to create a gallery on each page similar to the Coroncoaster drawings on the home page depending on levels of interaction).
We look forward to supporting you over this tricky time.
starter idea
Cog Learning and Teaching at Home
Revise and revisit the learning you’ve been doing at school about the Emotion Works Cogs.
Themed idea 1
Keeping the blues away during Lockdown
This Fischy Music song is a great way to keep you talking, singing and moving during home learning.
Click through to the activity page to play and learn the song. The follow up activities will also get you thinking about the blue and yellow cogs again to help you plan some regulation activities and feel-good triggers to help keep the blues away. Orange cog activities this week will also look at emotion words for feeling blue.
Cog Focus: Orange, Blue and Yellow
Themed idea 2
Getting Creative for Children's Mental Health Week
Building on last week’s theme of staying positive and Keeping the Blues away during lockdown, this week we’re sharing some ideas for Cog Creativity to support Children’s Mental Health Week organised by the Place2Be.
Our stimulus is ‘The Dot’ by Peter H. Reynolds with some dotty art ideas for getting creative with the cogs.
Cog Focus: All Cogs
YOUR WORK SHARED
During the first lockdown and over the course of the Emotion Works Recovery Programme we shared an idea to draw your own Emotional Coronacoaster with all of the different emotion words marked on to name the different emotions you might have felt during lockdown. Lots of your teachers shared your #EWcoronacoasters on our Twitter feed @EmotionWorksCIC, and some of you shared your own via our home learning site last summer.
This is a great Orange Cog learning activity to try if you haven’t done one already. Some of you also included your Yellow Cog triggers for your different emotions. Click on any of the images you’d like to take a closer look at to compare your own lockdown feelings with others.
For those of you who have been asking about Emotion Works packages for when schools return – please see this post about our trial and full school packages
https://www.emotionworks.org.uk/emotion-works-primary-school-packages-2021/