We are working with Shelf Care Book Club & My Mood Stars to bring awareness to why it is important for kids to read and how it can benefit their mental health in a positive way. The Mood Stars help kids understand their thoughts and feelings and we will talk about that more later on in the post.
Shelf Care Book Club are launching a FREE book club that is designed to encourage reading and positive mental health in our children. They will send members a free eBook every month, and up to 20 members will also get a physical copy of the book (UK Only). For details on the books for the next six months; check out our Amazon book store.
As someone who suffers with anxiety and struggling within social interactions I know that it is an essential social skill that needs to be taught from a young age. Being able to understand emotions in others is equally as important as understanding them in ourselves. Children start to learn from people’s facial expressions and then often they are shown emotion cards with faces and feelings. However, for some children and adults it can be difficult especially for those that might feature along the autism spectrum or are suffering from an illness like dementia.
We have been gifted a set of ‘My Mood Stars’ with a board and an occupying book to help us understand how this has been helping children and adults across the board. My Mood Stars helps these groups to immerse themselves in play, either by themselves or as part of a group. My Mood Stars allows it to be fun and gives everyone an opportunity to talk about how and what they are feeling in an easier setting.
The soft stars are named – Timid, Sad, Angry, Happy, Sleepy, Surprised, Scared and Silly – but this isn’t set in stone so you can adapt them to whatever suits you and your setting. The stars have been simple to avoid any issues with culture, age or gender and it means they can be used with multiple settings.
My Mood Stars work really well at home as they are not just designed for use in a school / learning environment.
Alongside our Mood Stars we have been gifted a copy of Beware of the Blue Bagoo by Karl Newman, one for us to read and one for us to gift onto someone else.
It is a brilliant book and it is about a detective who is on the trail of a mysterious blue creature in this fun picture book! The detective tries to uncover the truth about the infamous ‘Blue Bagoo’ and we love the idea that the detective addresses us (the reader) on the very first page. This book is very Dr Suess-esque and we love this style of books as it is fun to read and for kids to enjoy. It is based in a seaside town, and if you know me well enough then you will know that the seaside has my heart so I really enjoyed reading this to Ethan and Ezra at bedtime.
This book is brilliant for teaching the readers about jumping to conclusions and judging others and I can’t wait to gift the other copy to my son’s school to continue the message.
You can get your own copy of Beware of the blue bagoo on Amazon** and if you want to get your own set of The Mood Stars then follow this link.
If you want to sign up to the Shelf Care Book Club then fill in the details below and thank you to Kiddycharts, The Mood Stars and Beware Of the Blue Bagoo for working with us on this piece.
DISCLAIMER: If marked with a ** then it is an affiliate link – if you purchase from this link I may receive a few pennies from the retailer. It doesn’t increase the price you are paying.
DISCLAIMER: This item has been gifted to us but our opinions do not reflect on the products company, or the thoughts of any social media companies we have shared this review on.
We give our 100% honest opinions on the products we test and we have declared it is an AD and gifted as required by the ASA guidelines
