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Weekly Art Therapy activities to do at home 13th May 2020Hello its Fiona the school Art Therapist. I hope your finding these art therapy activities helpful.Always remember art is good for our mental health and can be a special time to be with yourself and take some time out of your normal thoughts and concerns that you may have right now. These activities are for children and adults so you can either do them together or by yourselves at different times in the day. For each of the activities find a table where you can draw and have your art materials around you. If possible close the door and let anyone in the house know you are having some ‘quiet time’ doing some art making. Or if you choose to do these activities together that’s ok too. Just check with each child/adult what they would prefer and if you can use all materials.Before both of these activities it is helpful to ground yourself and settle into being in the present moment before starting to draw. So I invite you to practice the breathing exercise I introduced last week before starting each activity, reminder of this breathing activity is here:BELLY BREATH Sit in a chair, back straight and place both feet on the floor. Place one hand on your chest near your heart and then the other on top and close your eyes. Do some deep breathing and notice your chest expanding and your feet rooted on the ground. When I say ‘deep breathing’ I can also say ‘belly breathing’ which is breathing in through your nose to your belly and breathing out through your mouth. Try and slow your breathing down and you could say to yourself the word ‘belly’ as you breath in and ‘breathing’ as you breath out. 5. CIRCLE OF PEACE Find a household object that is a circle shape such as a plate or bowl, something that will fill your page that you are using (doesn’t matter about size of your paper just as big as you can find, then make sure the circular object is as big as it can be to fill the page as much as possible.) Slowly draw around the circle object so you create a circle on your page.This is your ‘circle of peace’. Inside the circle draw shapes, objects, patterns of things that bring a smile to your face, use your favourite colours and notice how you feel as you fill in your ‘circle of peace’. Whatever you fill inside the circle image it filling you inside your body with peaceful, soothing feelings and thoughts.6. GRATITUDE HEART Draw a large heart on the paper but keeping some space around it to be able to write some words. Fill the inside of your heart with lines to create about 8-10 different sections ( depending on size of your heart). This is your ‘gratitude heart’. Draw a line from each section inside the heart to the outside of the heart and write down a person, place or thing that your grateful for right now. (could be your favourite tv show, your pet, your snacks, the sky, the sound of birds, your book, your relative..) Bring a smile to your face and hold in mind smiling as much as you can during this exercise.Now fill in each of the sections with a different colour/ symbol/ shape that represents the gratitude item you have written for that section. Remember to bring a smile to your face each time you think of that person/place/thing.You will end up with a heart filled with sections of different colours, objects, shapes and lines coming out of the heart with words explaining each thing you are grateful for.Notice how full the heart is with love and gratitude. Now close your eyes and image all those loving feelings inside your own heart and do your belly breath whilst smiling. Breathing into your heart and body these loving feelings as you smile and breath. Place your heart somewhere where you can see it each morning/evening and try and take a moment to stand in front of it smile, breath and fill your heart and body with these loving grateful feelings. Just a reminder that the breathing exercise is a calming activity in itself so you could try it at different times in the day, perhaps before as a family before a meal or by yourself before starting or ending school work or before bed. I hope you enjoy these activities, just create and notice how you feel, this is a special time for you to tap into your creativity and play. Warm Wishes, Fiona Fitzpatrick, Art Therapist ................
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