The mental health awareness week activities were designed to introduce the concept and importance of mental wellness to our learners by interacting with them through different forms of expression.
Grade 1:
The activity for Grade 1 was “ My happy hobby” where they identified their favourite hobby and how it makes them feel. The focus was on teaching them the impact hobbies can have in determining their wellness and changing their mood effectively. Our learners were reflective and understood how their hobbies helped them feel. This also is a beginning to develop healthy coping mechanisms that they can develop for their wellbeing. Our learners enjoyed making colourful posters with their happy hobby together in class.
Grade 2:
The Grade 2 learners actively participated in the “ Sing a song of your emotions” activity where they wrote & tuned their own song describing their different emotions and sang it to the class. It was a melodious way to learn about their expression of the different emotions. They were excellent risk takers to try out their own tunes and words for the activity. While some learners moved to their tunes and some added the touch of instrumental music, the session was very useful to share & learn about identifying their emotional expressions.
Grade 3:
A Positive mindset opens the door to many possibilities. Our learners of Grade 3 during the activity “ positive quotes” made bookmarks carrying their own positive vibrant quotes that they formed to motivate themselves. Our learners expressed their thinker attribute to form different quotes and put them in the bookmark which they also were excited to use in their notebooks. This activity was designed to help them find and develop a positive attitude while learning to devise their motivating strategies to combat challenges.
Grade 4:
Our cheerful learners of grade 4 gave their monologue on gratitude and how they would like to express it. Walking by the words of Oprah Winfrey “ The single greatest thing you can do to change your life today would be to start being grateful for what you have right now.” It was very inspiring to hear them share their monologue, especially remembering the support by different people in their lives including watchman, house help, doctors and people apart from their family while expressing their gratitude.
Grade 5:
Wellness is a journey connected to everyone around us which is reflected in the activity of “ walk the talk” with our Grade 5 learners. This was to focus on the importance of mental well being and to initiate these conversations with our families back home. During the session , the learners shared their knowledge on what mental health is and what are the different things they do to take care of their well-being. They took these conversations to their families and formed essential agreements to devise habits that would promote their overall wellbeing. The learners transferred their conceptual understanding of mental well being and essential agreements in the context of their wellness for this activity and also expressed their communicator attribute.
Reflections
The learners mentioned about how they only concentrated on physical health and this was an opportunity for them to understand the importance of mental health as well. The students showed a lot of interest in being a part of the activities and also showed how creative they all were.
