Welcome to Well-Being is a new 3-level well-being programme for Junior Infants, Senior Infants and First Class (ages 5 to 7+). It is based on Positive Psychology, which is the science of well-being and is designed to be implemented as part of the SPHE curriculum.
The programme aims to enhance young children’s wellbeing and resilience through developing specific skills including emotional intelligence and regulation, boosting positive emotions and enhancing social skills and self-confidence.
The theme of the programme is that two small aliens called Mo and Ko arrive from a planet called Zo to help children feel happy, strong, kind and brave, loving and well. Each week they introduce children to a new idea and they set a challenge for the children to try it out for the week – at home as well as at school. By default, the characters Mo & Ko are gender-neutral. A gender-specific version is also available which can be ordered HERE.
Each of the three levels of Welcome to Well-being comes with a Teacher Resource Book (with a comprehensive online Digital Companion Page – DCP) and a Pupil Book (Reflective Journal). The DCP contains PowerPoint presentations for each lesson, supplementary worksheets, classroom posters and much more. The pupil book has two activities per lesson as well as a homework activity. A pull-out Parent Information Guide is included in each child’s Pupil Book to support parental involvement.
The programme has been written by Fiona Forman, co-author of the extensively used middle to upper primary school programme Weaving Well-Being and author of the Secondary school programmes Wired for Well-Being (Junior cycle) and Tools to Thrive (Senior cycle).