Simon Cossey Professional Blog

I feel so lucky to be learning so much from the kids that I teach.  Two of our students taught me new games that they had played during their art therapy time.  The first game involves drawing 6 doodles / scribbles / shapes and numbering them 1-6.  Then each person takes a turn to roll a die.  If the die lands on a 6, that person copies the doodle that is labelled '6'.  This continues until one player draws all 6 doodles on their paper.  The game seems to help students take turns and interact positively with each other while also creating a drawing in a structured way.  Another drawing game involves drawing a large circle or square (over most of the paper) and dividing it into parts. If there are 3 players, divide the shape into 3 parts. If there are 4 players, divide the shape into 4 parts. Decide how many minutes you will get to draw your first picture (1-3 minutes seems good). Then each person draws their first picture in one of the sections. Then we all swap pictures and dr

Today, I had the opportunity to join with Maggie (an art therapist) while she worked with one of our students.  It was such a valuable and fascinating learning experience. I was a bit nervous - I didn't want to say the wrong thing! I needn't have worried.  1. Feelings scale 1-10 with colours to represent the feelings. We drew the scale together. We discussed how we were feeling at that moment. Maggie emphasised that all the emotions are ok and important. We talked about where we were sitting on the scale when we woke up in the morning. Maggie talked about what she noticed her body doing (eyes feeling heavy) when describing where she was on the scale.  2. Emotions cards. Maggie talked about emotions using cards from Inside Out 2 (the movie). She explained that, like the primary colours, base emotions can get mixed to create new emotions. For example, anxiety can be a mix of fear, anger and sadness. The base emotions are joy, anger, sadness, disgust and fear. Maggie asked our stu