Calming Tin
Inspired by ‘The Worrysaurus’ written by Rachel Bright, this is a wonderful activity for your children or toddlers to create their own tin of happy things that they can explore when they are feeling anxious or worried.
Set Up
For this I used the tin, stickers, dinosaur crayon, playdough and the pinecone butterflies from our September ‘Worries’ activity box. I added some of his favourite little toys and photos of us together and his bedtime snuggles. My son and I did this activity before he started preschool so I added one of the iron transfer hearts that I had put onto his t shirts to remind him that we love him.
I put these objects out to simply give my son an idea of what he may like to include.
We began by reading ‘The Worrysaurus’ paying particular attention to the part in the story when the Worrysaurus gets out his tin of happy things which makes him feel better.
I explained that his tin of happy things would go into his bag and preschool and if he felt sad he could go through his tin with his teacher.
We began by my son decorating one of the stickers to personalise his tin and then he decided what he wanted to include.
He only choose a couple of the items I had put out and I was surprised by what he chose: some bubble wrap and a piece of survival blanket were two objects I hadn’t considered.
My son was really proud of his tin and was desperate to show his Daddy what he had included and talk about each item.
On his first day at preschool we carefully put his tin in his bag and it will stay there for whenever he needs it.