Tuesday 19th May

Date: 19th May 2020 @ 10:43am

Morning, lovely little people!

I hope you are all well and had a lovely day yesterday spreading kindness.  Don't forget that this week is the last week of the term, so after Friday you can have 2 weeks of rest and relaxation. 

As I said yesterday, this week is Mental Health Awareness week, so our work is based around this and the theme of it this year, which is kindness. Yesterday, I gave you all a list of tasks and asked you to do a task of your choosing each day (you could use my ideas or come up with your own). I will post the list every day on the blog so you don't have to keep going back and looking at it. 

1. Keep a mental health journal, where you add an entry each day about how you have been feeling, if you have spread kindness or if someone has shown you kindness.

2. Write a poem all about kindness.

3. Research the effects of kindness on someone's mental health (this website might have some useful information for you: https://www.mentalhealth.org.uk/campaigns/mental-health-awareness-week)

4. Write a short story with a message all about being kind to others.

5. Produce a rap / song all about mental health and how to look after it.

6. Design a poster all about the benefits of kindness on someone's mental health.

7. Produce a piece of artwork demonstrating what kindness means to you.

8. Make a list of 30 ways someone can show kindness and try to complete as many as you can.

9. Be a secret kindness ninja- each day, try to complete one random act of kindness!

10. Come up with a list of rules on how to be kind for younger children.

11. Write a recount about a time someone showed kindness to you and how it made you feel.

12. Create a mental health mascot- draw a picture of him/ her, write their special powers and how they can help other people.

13. Create an information leaflet about mental health and how it can be good and bad.

14. Speak to the people in your family about their mental health and compile a list of ways they try to make sure they are mentally healthy. (Do they have hobbies that make them relax? How do they cope with things that upset them? What do they do when they are feeling sad or low?)

15. Take a survey every day- ask every member of your family to tell you on a scale of 1-10 how happy they are. Record your results and then analyse them at the end of the week. Was there a specific day that people were unhappy? Was everyone happy all of the time? Who was the happiest? Who was the least happy? What could you do to make them happier? (As an extra challenge, you could use 2graph on Purple Mash to record your results and see them in different ways). 

I would like to give a shout out to Maizie Moo for her wonderful kindness poem. I received an email this morning from her that made me smile. Well done, Maizie- your poem is excellent and really sums up the theme of this year's Mental Health Awareness week.

Another shout out goes to Beau. He has worked hard to produce a set of rules on how to be kind for younger children. Some very sensible, thoughtful and grown up rules here, Beau. Well done. 

While I'm giving shout outs, I'd like to give another one to Myla. She sent me an email with a photograph of her wind-powered car from STEM week last week. I must say, Myla, I was very impressed with how professional that car looked. I particularly loved the people on board the car! 

So, you've seen what some people have created so far. I know there are lots of you working extremely hard from home, so if you want your work displayed on the blog, email it across to me and I will post it on here. If you don't want your work to be seen by everyone, still send it across and just let me know. I'd love to see it and I would never post if you didn't want me to!

On another note, it is nice to see the Purple Mash class blog is getting up and running. A few more of you have been adding your own posts. Georgina and Ava S have posted recently- Ava gave some great tips on how to stay busy during lockdown. It's a nice way for us all to keep in touch with one another, so keep using it!

Today, I want you to pick another item from our list of activities (or come up with your own). To help you along, I have been doing some research and I found these facts about mental health that I think you will find interesting. Feel free to do some of your own research (making sure you are safe online and have a grown up's permission) or use my facts to enhance your own work. 

* Random acts of kindness are good for your health. That warm feeling you get when you do a good deed is a chemical being released in your brain- this chemical can make you feel happier.

* Kind people age slower! (I'll be 31 forever because I'm just so kind! )

* Kindness can be contagious: if people witness an act of kindness, they are more likely to pass on this kindness to someone else.

* Being kind to others stimulates the production of serotonin (a chemical in your brain, which helps to calm you down and heal your wounds!)

* A random act of kindness can improve someone's health! When you complete a random act of kindness, it causes someone's blood pressure to lower, which protects the heart.

* Around the world, there are currently around 264 million people who are suffering from depression (they need kindness the most!)

* Mental health is just as important as physical health because it helps to build resilience, which will help children cope with life as an adult. 

Hope these facts help you to create a great project. I learned a lot researching into mental health and I'm sure you will, too. 

BBC Bitesize daily lessons:

Maths - multiplying decimals by integers (whole numbers)

Literacy - using semi-colons

Geography - natural resources

These BBC lessons look great- you should be able to smash the maths and literacy tasks easily! I hope you enjoyed yesterday's lessons and you learned a lot about King Henry VIII (and all his wives!)

I will chat to you all again tomorrow, my little pickles. Have a great day and don't forget to have some fun, too.

Mrs Naylor