My Body Feelings Curriculum My BF

My Body Feelings (My BF) curriculum was developed to address anxiety and attentional issues in children grades 1-5, using current evidence-based research and the contemporary Theory of Constructed Emotions (Barrett, 2017) which poses that "the brain uses past experiences to construct a categorization that best fits the situation to guide action. The brain continually categorizes information to identify what sensory inputs are, infers a causal explanation for what caused them, and drives action plans for what to do about them. When this happens with an emotional concept, the categorization results in an instance of emotion" (Barrett, 2017 a, b). Categorization means that sometimes the expression of emotion can be constructed and perceived in various ways. For example, sometimes we laugh when we are nervous or happy. Helping children realize there is more than one way to ‘feel’ an emotion is justified. Diversity of emotions is an important concept when trying to ‘read’ others’ emotions. Our bodies are constantly working to achieve balance and maintain well-being. Using this bottom-up (i.e., body sensations) approach vs a top-down i.e., cognitive) approach is key with a dysregulated system that is ineffectively able to access cognitive processes. My Body Feelings starts with the body first. Using the body first and becoming aware of bodily sensations is the first step to regulation. Second, in using the Understanding by Design Framework which offers a three-stage backward design process for curriculum planning. UbD’s primary goal is teaching for understanding should be the assurance that students can use their acquired understandings and knowledge independently in real-world situations and scenarios. The UbD uses Enduring Understandings for big ideas that the students will know after the lesson or course. Essential Questions are questions that foster inquiry and understanding of learning and can be used as an assessment of knowledge (Bowen, 2017; McTighe & Wiggins, n.d.; McTighe & Associates Consulting, n.d.). 

21 Lessons and 120 pages.