Author: Amy Freckleton

In these times of change it is important for children to be able to recognise their own thoughts, notice any changes in their thoughts and understand how their thoughts can impact on them. Defining and learning about thoughts can be tricky, some simple ideas are:
Thoughts are words we say to ourselves
Everyone has thoughts
Thoughts happen in our brains/heads
We have lots of different thoughts but sometimes we can get stuck on a thought/thoughts , the same thought might keep popping into our head
Thoughts happen all the time and often without us realising
Not all of our thoughts are true
Two people can have different thoughts about the same thing
Thoughts can effect the way we feel and what we do (behaviour)
Use different activities to explore these ideas, see if the children can come up with their own definitions or their own way to explain what thoughts are.

There are lots of changes happening now. Some children cope better with change than others but it is important that change is normalised. Children should be aware that change happens all the time in lots of different ways and when change happens people/things adapt. Change is ok.
Explore things that change:
The current situation—explore changes that are occurring now and enable to children to see how they are adapting and problem solving to best suit them and their families
Seasons—Dress up for different seasons, use pictures of different animals and get children to explain how these animals adapt/change with the seasons, draw/paint pictures of the different seasons
Life cycles—grow some seed and get children to comment on how it changes over time, explore life cycles and compare the changes at various stages
Thoughts—give children different scenarios and explore how their thoughts might change, Use memories to see if there thoughts are the same now as they were then
There are lots of books that explore change, so these could be a really good resource for this and to get further ideas/activities that could be used

Teaching children to think out loud can be really helpful. Thinking out load allows children to learn that it is ok to share/talk about their thoughts, and that doing so can really help sometimes. Thinking out loud is not just talking about thoughts it can be writing thoughts down, drawing thoughts out or turning them into a poem or song. Thinking out loud can be done in lots of different ways.

Create a thought monster/box/jar so children can write down any thoughts that may be causing them to feel anxious or scared. Thoughts they might want to get rid of.
Act out a scene from a book or play, allowing the scenes to pause so children can speak out the thoughts of the character
Ask the children to create a poem about a memory they have, focusing on the thoughts they had at the time
Create a story/comic book were the story is told through the thoughts of a character/characters
If a child is experiencing anxious or worried thoughts it is really important that they can share these thoughts with others.

Thoughts come in all different sizes. Small thoughts pop in and out of our heads, we don’t normally pay much attention to them and they don’t normally effect us too much. Big thoughts take up lots of space in our heads so we pay them lots of time and attention and they have bigger effects on us. Teaching children about these differences can be done creatively.
Sort various characteristics into either small or big thoughts
Use various size thought bubbles allow the children to fill them with their own thoughts
Use bubbles to represent different size thoughts, see how long it takes them to pop, which ones last longer
Throw different size objects (thoughts) into a bucket (head), which ones take up more room, which ones are easier to get rid of, how many can fit inside
As big thoughts effect us more, explore ways the children can get rid of big thoughts:
Attach them to balloons and let them float away
Create/use the thought monster/box/jar

These are just a few ideas that can be used alongside of the PowerPoint and booklet. Be creative with this, allow children to take the lead and come up with their own ideas. Use resources you may already have that could expand on these things further.