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© Gail Underwood Parker

Tuesday, February 15, 2011

Focus on Fostering: Mood Thermometers

My kiddos often had moods that were very hard to read. The typical feeling charts with their assorted faces were far too many choices for them, plus too hard to read. I decided to make our own and to start with just three feelings: happy, sad, and mad.  

I had one of my cherubs show me what he looked like when he was a little happy, medium happy, and crazy happy, sad, and mad. I took pictures. Together we made the chart/poster you see. [It was his idea to make the sad thermometer go down as it got sadder.]

We used the chart 2 main ways.
1- He could move a magnet to show where his feelings/moods were.
2- I could move a magnet to show where it seemed his feelings/moods were.

I could say a lot more, but simply put... it work mini-miracles! This worked perfectly for us.Try it and let me know how it works for you! If you need more info about the other ways we used this, let me know and I will happily send you more info.

4 comments:

  1. What a great idea for kids that have trouble expressing themselves! Mine don't have that issue at all!

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  2. I hear you! Sometimes even if kids express it well, it is nice to have a way of pointing it out to them non-verbally. I especially liked being able to use it to show them that things were escalating so that maybe they could bring their emotional level back down before things got out of hand. Thanks for posting!! [Sorry I was slow responding.]

    Gail

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  3. Great idea, Gail! I am looking for strategies to use with kids on the spectrum and this fits the bill!
    Used to live in ME and did my student teaching at Cape Elizabeth Middle School in a 7th or 8th grade math class! Small world....

    ReplyDelete
  4. Great idea, Gail! I am looking for strategies to use with kids on the spectrum and this fits the bill!
    Used to live in ME and did my student teaching at Cape Elizabeth Middle School in a 7th or 8th grade math class! Small world....

    ReplyDelete