Why we love Emotional Rollercoaster
This fun, arty Emotional Rollercoaster helps tamariki (and your whole whānau) talk about how you're feeling. It a great thing to do during uncertain and stressy times, but actually any time! The science behind this activity says that when tamariki are able to talk about their emotions, they're better able to understand and manage them.
What to do
Find some paper, wool or string, bluetack, felts, crayons, paint or pencils and glue. You might like to glue or selotape paper together to create a big rollercoaster, but any size will do.
Cut a long piece of the wool or string and dangle it over the paper, then guide it down onto the paper so it loops and twirls making your rollercoaster track. Glue this in place.
While this is drying, make your carriages - you may want to make one for each person in your whānau. You could do this by drawing carriages or using leaves from the garden - be as creative as you like! Be sure to draw each whānau member in their carriage and/or name them.
Once your wool track has dried add the 'struts' to the track, a backdrop or anything you like. Then blue tack your carriages to the track.
Create little tabs of heaps of different emotions.
Maybe come up with 5 yourself, then ask your family to provide 5 more each! Write these on each tab and glue around the rollercoaster. You can always add more but be sure to include a range of emotions that we love to feel, as well as ones we don't! They're all emotions and it's totally normal to feel them.
