10/04/2025
🌟 Real-Life Emotions, Real-Life Strategies 🌟
Toddlers feel big emotions from frustration to excitement, jealousy, curiosity, and sometimes those feelings come out as pushing, hitting, or grabbing. These are normal moments of learning, and that’s why I created a week of hands-on, thoughtful lessons to help children practice gentle, safe, and kind behaviors.
Every day, children encounter moments of conflict or testing boundaries. I don’t just respond, I teach. Through the week’s activities, toddlers learn to:
💛 Recognize their feelings (angry, frustrated, sad, excited)
💛 Understand how their actions affect others
💛 Practice alternatives to pushing, hitting, or grabbing
💛 Use words, gentle touches, and take turns
📚 Stories & Teaching Resources
Books provide a safe way to explore emotions and social situations. This week, we read:
• Hands Are Not for Hitting
• No More Push!
• How Do Dinosaurs Play with Their Friends?
• Llama Llama Time to Share
I also use social stories and teaching resources to address biting, hitting, and pushing to give toddlers clear, relatable examples and strategies to make better choices. I also created visuals with the children that parents can use at home, so they can point to them to remind children when they’re doing something helpful or hurtful.
🎶 Songs & Movement
Music helps toddlers process emotions and practice self-regulation:
• “These Hands Are Made for Helping”
• “If You’re Feeling Mad and You Know It”
• “The Sharing Song”
• “I Can Be a Kind Friend”
📝 Intentional, Thoughtful Learning
Every activity is designed to reinforce strategies for real-life situations:
• Matching good vs. hurtful hand choices
• Practicing turn-taking with spinners and role-play
• Counting and tracking kind actions
• Sequencing gentle behaviours through storytelling
At King West Home Daycare, lessons are intentional. Focused on real emotions, real actions, and real teaching strategies. Children in my care learn that feelings are normal, but how we respond matters. Here, toddlers practice kindness every day in a caring and safe environment ❤️
