Some time ago, we were able to introduce the team of the Marienpflege Ellwangen (a daycare and assisted living village for children and adolescents) to working with the Gefühlsmonster® cards in an online seminar. In concrete terms, the aim was to train the staff in the use of the Gefühlsmonsters in their particular area and to enable them to gain their own initial experiences with the use of the cards in the seminar.
Rarely do we have the opportunity to gain insight into the integration process of the Gefühlsmonsters afterwards, i.e. from theory to practice. We were all the more pleased when the daycare center now gave us initial feedback on their work with the monsters:
“To introduce the cards, we looked at the Gefühlsmonsters with the children and worked on the following questions:
– What does the monster look like?
– What does the monster do?
– How does it feel?
– When do you feel this way?
– What could have happened to the monster or to you?
The children had great fun with the Gefühlsmonsters. They were really creative and could immediately identify with the monsters.
For Lent, we worked out individual goals with the children, for example ‘helping others’ and thought about how they could achieve the goal concretely, so for example by helping to set the table or by helping the smaller children, etc. We had the children choose a matching Gefühlsmonster, which they were then allowed to colour in and design for their portfolio. You can see some sample pictures here:
The Gefühlsmonsters have now become part of our everyday life. For example, the Gefühlsmonster poster hangs in our entrance area and the children use it as a guide to express and explain their feelings. It is often visited by the children.
The children also play memory games with the cards or we educators incorporate them into PE lessons or stories.
We and the children are very fond of the Gefühlsmonsters and will continue to include them in our work with the children in the future. Thank you for this great idea and your suggestions.”
Our heartfelt thanks goes to the team at Marienpflege for their feedback and cooperation!