Social-Emotional
Learn Social-Emotional through play.
These are the activities for the parts of childhood that are not about knowing things: waiting for a turn, losing a game, being cross and not knowing why, missing somebody.
They include feelings games, turn-taking games with very short turns, breathing activities that work because they are silly rather than earnest, and simple ways to name what a face is doing.
Nothing here is therapy and none of it is advice. If you are worried about your child, your health visitor, GP or paediatrician is the right person to ask — these are just games that give feelings a name and some practice.
Activities
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Draw Round Their Hand and Keep It
One sheet, once a year: their hand, their height, and three things they can do now that they could not last year.
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Handprint Turkeys for the Table
Draw round their hand, turn it into a turkey, write a name on it. Everyone gets one at their place.
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A Countdown Chain
One paper loop per day, torn off each morning. It makes waiting visible, which is what small children need.
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A Post Box for Kind Notes
A cereal box with a slot cut in it. Everyone posts a note about somebody else, and you read them out at dinner.
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Making a Playdate Go Well
Put the precious toys away first, have one activity that needs two people, and finish while it is still going well.
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Tidying Up Without the Battle
"Tidy up" is an impossible instruction. "Put the blocks in the blue box" is a job a three-year-old can finish.
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The Hour After School Is Always the Hardest
A child who held it together all day falls apart the moment they see you. Food first, questions much later.
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Making Bedtime Shorter
Most bedtime trouble is a routine problem, not a sleep problem. Fewer decisions, same order, clear last thing.
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Goodnight, Everything
A slow bedtime story that says goodnight to one thing after another, and gets quieter as it goes.
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Make Up a Story With Three Things
A character, a place, and something going wrong. That is enough for almost any child to be away.
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Turning a Box Into a Shop
A delivery box, a marker and whatever is in the cupboard. Then step back, because the play runs itself.
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Five Games for the Wait Before the Food
No bag, no crayons, nothing to drop on the floor. Five games that need only the two of you and a table.
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A Thankful Tree
A branch in a jar and a paper leaf each day. Small, slow, and it ends up being the thing everyone reads at the table.
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Noisy Shakers and a Jar of Good Things
One loud activity and one quiet one. Make shakers for the countdown, and a jar to look back at next year.
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Practising the Bits That Actually Worry Them
Not the alphabet — the lunchbox, the buttons, the shoes and finding the toilet. The things that decide whether a first week goes well.