Kimochis
Kimochis at Seacliff PS
Recently, Seacliff Primary staff have had the opportunity to participate in a six-week after hours Professional Development programme in Kimochis. Twenty staff including SSO’s, classroom and Specialist teachers and Leadership attended the sessions. Kimochis = means ‘feelings’ in Japanese.
The Kimochis Curriculum is based on sound theories of child development and social-emotional learning (SEL).
Staff have been discovering how using Kimochis with their class can help create confident, connected and compassionate students using the 28 Kimochis (feelings) and the Kimochi characters (Cloud, Bug, Cat, Lovey Dovey and Huggtopus). The Kimochi a focus on the five core social and emotional competencies as outlined by the Collaborative for Academic and Social and Emotional Learning (CASEL), which are:
Feelings fuel behavior: Children can learn tools to help themselves in difficult emotional moments. These social-emotional communication tools can support positive behavior.
Through the identifying of the 28 Kimochis (‘feelings’) students can decide if a feeling is ‘nice to have’ or ‘hard to have’ and can learn and practice strategies to make these feelings bigger or smaller. By ‘naming’ the hard to have feelings, children can to ‘tame’ these often big or ‘hard to have feelings.’ Some helpful tools are using a calm-down breath, using kind and friendly words, friendly face and body and redoing hurtful moments with others.
Kimochis ‘Keys to Communication’ are also another aspect to the programme. Where students learn the keys of:
Staff have already begun to introduce aspects of the programme with their classes and have shared some very positive and exciting feedback around the students’ rapid connection to the programme and underlying concepts.
We look forward to sharing our students’ learning journey in developing and using the Kimochis communication tools.
These tools will help students to identify and manage their emotions, demonstrate care and concern for others, establish positive relationships, make responsible decision and handle challenging situations constructively.
Ruth Cameron
Student Leadership & Wellbeing Coordinator
