Part of our curriculum at Woodland Pre-Schools is our Protective Behaviours Programme which is a personal safety curriculum designed to empower children in their right to be safe and practice the behaviours that will keep them safe from harm. The programme has four main themes: Understanding Emotions, Finding Five Heroes – Building a network of trusted adults, Exploring Safe Spaces, Bodies and Privacy. This is imparted using age-appropriate messages and characters.

Eve is one of the characters in our Protective Behaviours Programme which is designed to help children identify and express their emotions, learn self-regulation techniques, and understand their emotions. To help our children visualise this, we created a “Zone of Emotions” wall where our children can actively show us what they are feeling. 

Lately, one of our children was feeling a bit unsettled. It may be because his sibling is taking a mid-term break but he has to go to school. To help him validate his feelings, we asked him to put his picture on the “Zone of Emotions” wall. On a difficult day, he was bought over to the “Zone of Emotions” wall where he placed his photo in the blue zone. The teacher asked whether he is feeling sad because he misses mummy, and he nodded. Later that day, shortly before goodbye time, he walked over to the wall and moved his picture over to the Green Zone. He told his teacher, “I’m happy.”

It was such a beautiful moment! We were thrilled to see our children’s willingness to express their emotions.