Emotional Intelligence

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​“In the last decade or so, science has discovered a tremendous amount about the role emotions play in our lives.  Researchers have found that even more than IQ, your emotional awareness and abilities to handle feelings will determine our success and happiness in all walks of life, including family relationships.”  — John Gottman

Exploring Feelings and Emotions

While we regularly focus on social-emotional development, we especially like to highlight our theme of love, kindness, and practicing self regulation in February!

​One of the best ways to introduce different feelings and learn tools to respond to big emotions is through educational children's books - here are some of our favorites:

Singing together is a great way to create group harmony. We sing a lot at ACG! Ask the kids to teach you our "Love Grows" song.

Learning to read other peoples facial expressions is an important step in practicing empathy. The kids loved making different expressions with play dough.

Feelings cards are a great way to open up a conversation about different feelings. Here are some of their honest responses:

"I get really frustrated when I have to get my coat on in the car and the zipper is really hard."

"I feel impatient when my mom says she will play with me but then makes me wait and wait and wait forever!"

"I feel love when my mama hugs me."

"I feel sorry when I take my sister's toys and yell at her."

Self portraits are a creative way for children to develop their observational, expressive, and reflective skills. The kids loved studying their faces in the mirror and trying out different facial expressions.

Painting to music - we painted one half of our pictures to fast fun music and the other half of the picture to slow gentle flowing music to compare how sound can influence our expression!

Conscious Discipline is a wonderful curriculum we use to help with learning about our emotions and healthy ways to respond to them. To see more about how the deep breathing, feeling buddies, and safe place work please see our previous blog for detailed instructions! Practicing the following breaths regularly helps us to be able to use them when a strong feeling gets a hold of us.

Balloon Breath

Drain Breath

Pretzel Breath

Feeling Buddies are such a sweet way to learn how to self regulate. The kids learn what the different expressions are and then comfort their feeling buddy. By learning how to soothe their feeling buddy, they are learning how to self soothe and process their own big feelings.

Sensory activities are another way to de-stress and help process more complex emotions. The kids loved measuring out and mixing together all the ingredients for this spice sensory bin.

Sensory water beads are super fun and very calming too.

Calming Bears - we mixed water beads and water in empty honey bear bottles! Shake them up and down, then take deep breaths while watching the balls settle.

Kindness bracelets - make a bracelet to give to your friend!

Kindness Jar - a fun way to acknowledge and celebrate kindness is to keep a kindness jar. Any time someone notices another person being kind they put a pompom in the jar - when the jar is full we celebrate with a kindness party!

We made special cookies and had a dance party to celebrate!

Valentines Fun!

Valentine's play-dough

Heart rock puzzle - how many rocks do you think will fit in the heart?

Heart valentines

Science Investigation

We love our new microscope! We looked at plant cells and earthworms!!

Floating objects

Heavy lifting!

Garden Time!

It's broccoli season!!

Kindness Party Recipes!
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Double Chocolate Muffins - really moist, nutritious, and sugar free!

Ingredients:

• 4 large eggs
• 4 tablespoons unsalted butter, melted and slightly cooled
• 1 tablespoon liquid stevia (equals 1 cup sugar)
• 1 tablespoon pure vanilla extract
• 1 1/2 cups coconut milk
• 1 cup coconut flour
• 1/2 cup unsweetened natural cocoa powder 
• 1/4 cup stevia sweetened chocolate chips
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 1 teaspoon baking soda

Instructions:

• Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Grease a mini muffin pan with coconut oil. 
• In a large bowl, whisk the eggs. One by one, whisk in the butter, stevia, vanilla, and milk.
• Whisk in the coconut flour, then chocolate chips, then the cocoa powder. Finally, whisk in the salt and the baking soda.
• Using 2 spoons, divide the batter evenly among the prepared muffin pan.
• Bake until set and a toothpick inserted in center comes out clean, 15 - 18 minutes.
• Cool the muffins 10 minutes in the pan on a cooling rack, then cool directly on the cooling rack until completely cool, about 30 more minutes. The muffins taste much better when they’ve had a chance to cool and set.

Chocolate Fudge Brownies

• Ingredients
  • 1 cup almond butter
  • 1/3 cup raw honey
  • 1 egg
  • 2 tbsp coconut oil
  • 1 tsp vanilla
  • 1/3 cup cocoa powder
  • 1/2 tsp pure baking soda

Directions

1. Preheat the oven to 325 degrees F. In a large bowl, whisk together the almond butter, honey, egg, coconut oil, and vanilla. Stir in the cocoa powder and baking soda.
2. Pour the batter into a 9-inch baking pan. Bake for 20-23 minutes, until the brownie is done, but still soft in the middle.

Chocolate Chip Cookie Bites - delicious, grain-free, and totally vegan!

Ingredients:

• 1/4 cup coconut oil
• 1/3 cup sunflower seed butter, tahini, or almond butter
• 2/3 cup coconut sugar, maple syrup, or xylitol
• 2 flax eggs
• 1 tsp vanilla extract
• 1/2 tsp baking soda
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 1/3 cup coconut flour
• 2/3 cup chocolate chips
• Sea salt to sprinkle on top

Instructions:

• Preheat oven to 350F and line a cookie sheet with parchment paper.
• In a bowl or mixer, beat together coconut oil, sunflower seed butter or substitute, and coconut sugar until smooth. Add flax eggs and vanilla and mix until smooth.
• Add the baking soda, salt, and coconut flour to the wet ingredients. Mix until well incorporated. Fold in the dark chocolate.
• Use a cookie scoop to form cookies and place 2 inches apart on the baking sheet. Sprinkle with a bit of sea salt. Bake for 10 minutes or until just golden brown around the edges.
• Let cool for 5 minutes on baking sheet then move to a cooling rack. Enjoy! 

See you next time!