Johnson House
Story by Senior Occupational Therapist Justine
Although the weather was intermittent this week, the children in Johnson House still enjoyed the opportunity to get active indoors. When the weather is tricky and it’s not practical to be outside, it can be hard for some children to expend their energy, and when energy gets ‘bottled up’, it can impact regulation. Regulation is the ability to adjust and control your energy level, emotions, behaviours and attention. Regulation skills are linked to how well children manage many tasks during early childhood. With regulation skills, children are more able to manage the difficult and stressful events that occur as part of life
Rigby House
Story by Centre Director Isa
The children in Rigby House enjoy gardening and taking responsibility for caring for our garden. As they were checking on our herb garden this week, they noticed that many of our plants had leaves missing, or had holes in them. We wondered what had caused this, and many of the children came to the conclusion that something must be eating the leaves. So they started to search for what was eating the leaves.
The children discovered a cocoon under a leaf, and then they found a caterpillar. They concluded that the caterpillar must be the creature eating the leaves!
The children were intrigued to see how the caterpillar moved, and we placed it in a container so that we could observe it for a little while. The children placed leaves in the container for the caterpillar to eat, which led to a wonderful conversation about the importance of eating to give us energy to play and have fun, and to help us to grow and keep strong.
