- Key idea: It is important to express our emotions – e.g. Learning to share feelings with family, teacher and friends, learning to identify and label basic emotions (happy, sad, scared, angry) in story books and in others (UC3.3).
- Key Idea: We should support children in feeling empowered and optimistic for the future – Sustainable citizens, our youngest, and their elders together, are contributing towards solving the problems that we face.
Title: The Last Tree
Author: Emily Haworth-Booth
Illustrator:
Publisher: Farshore
Publication Date: 2020
ISBN: 978-1843654377
Before the community realised the consequences of what they were doing, they cut down most of the trees, the forest becomes thinner, until there is just one last tree standing. It was left for the children to find a solution.
Emergent learning:
Bad things happen and we want our children to grow up to be resilient, that means that we must provide support and encouragement when they face challenges, we mustn’t be over-protective. If we share a picture story book that is focused upon sustainability, and it leaves the child feeling sad, scared or angry then we have failed. Perhaps we have found the wrong book, or perhaps we have shared it badly – to get it right, what we must remember is that whatever danger, crisis or problem that the story is addressing we must leave the child feeling that there is something that we can do together to help the situation. We should leave them feeling empowered and optimistic for the future. Sustainable citizens, young and old together can solve the problems that we face.
Activity recommendation:
We contribute towards early childhood education for sustainable citizenship education whenever we involve children in our day to day sustainable decision making, explaining to them the reasons that we are choosing the sustainable option in our purchase of a particular food item, domestic appliance or vehicle. We can provide positive role models by involving them in our conservation of the natural environment, of energy and in our reductions in waste. We can also help them control and express their emotions freely by talking about our own feelings, and the feeling states of others in story books, and in real life. Always celebrate the collective progress that is being made to create a more sustainable world and foster the children’s pride in being a part of it.
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