Connect

Spending quality time connecting with family and friends is a great way to help you feel happy, which is good for your wellbeing.

You can connect with other people through things like playing a game with family, sitting down for a meal together, or reading a book together.
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Connecting in these ways helps us to build good relationships, feel supported and valued, to lower stress and clear our minds.

Talking through our worries with friends and family

Michelle gets some great advice from Harold and gets in touch with Jo to have a chat about her worries and what she can do to help manage them. Talking about our worries with our friends, whanau or teachers can help us to feel lots better! 

Give the activities below a try:
  • Have a read of our Worried, scared or nervous Fact Sheet and have a go at Harold’s Quiz here.
  • Learn how to do a breathing exercise that can help you to feel nice and calm here.
  • Colour in a picture of Harold and his friends here.​

Managing different personalities

Jo and Harold talk about what we can do when when our personalities are different which causes a challenging situation and leaves us working through some different feelings.

Give these activities a try after you've watched the video:
  • Can you find all the different feelings in our word search here?
  • Try an activity which helps you to think of strategies to deal with different feelings here.
  • Here is an activity for 5-7 year old's about managing feelings, work through this with your family here.
  • Here is an activity for 7-9 year old's which encourages us to think about different personalities, work through this with your family here.
  • Here is an activity for 9-12 year olds which explores the things that make up our personality, work through this with your family here.
  • Check out our Fact Sheet Handling our feelings and give Harold's quiz a try here.

Making a calm jar

Sometimes we just need to stop for a little breather to help us feel more calm when we’re feeling a bit annoyed, stressed or agitated. Our Educator Kat shows us how to make a ‘calm jar’ which can help.
When you shake up the jar watch as all the glitter, paint and pompoms are rattled around all over the place. This can be what it’s like when you have lots of feelings bouncing around in your brain. Then take a moment to just sit nice and still and take slow deep breaths. Watch as everything slowly settles down and becomes calm – just like we do ourselves when we take a break.

Give these activities a try after you've watched the video:
  • Have a try at making your own calm jar at home. Be creative if you don’t have some of the things that Kat used, there are lots of items around the house that might work!
  • Read through our Handling our feelings fact sheet and do Harold’s quiz here.

Staying connected while in your bubble

Our Educator Kat talks about who might be in our outer bubble and how we can stay connected to these people.

Give these activities a try after you've watched the video:
  • Draw a picture like Kat has in the video, writing down who is in your inner bubble and who is in your outer bubble. Have a brainstorm of the ways you can keep connected and stay in touch with those in your outer bubble. Try to keep get in touch with someone from your outer bubble each day. ​
  • Give our Friends Word Find a try here.

How to cope with stress

Jo and Harold have been talking about how some life situations can cause stress. Find out about some of the things they like to do if they are feeling a bit stressed. 

​Once you have watched the video try these activities below:
  • Read through our Stressed out Learning Experience and answer the questions with your family here.
  • Learn about the feelings associated with stress and what we can do about it by reading our Stress Fact Sheet here.
  • Managing stress is one way to keep healthy. This activity encourages us to think of other things that also keep the brain healthy.

Five star breathing

Sometimes your feelings can get a little bit much for you and you can have a rush of emotions all at once.

​Check out this video made by our Educator Siobhan who is sharing her favourite little activity that can help you to stop, breathe and to feel lots more calm.

​Together as a family, download Harold's Learning Experience and work through the questions with your family here.

What can we do when we are feeling worried?

Sometimes things happening in our lives can make us feel worried. There are lots of things we can do to help ourselves to feel better. Check out this video to see Harold and Jo's tips on what can help when you are feeling worried.
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  • View the story 'The Wolf and the Baby Dragon' here.
  • For some tips on how you can use your senses to help you feel more calm, watch the video here.
  • Check out our Fact Sheet 'What to do when I'm worried, scared or nervous' and then give Harold's quiz a go here.

Friendship recipe

Write a recipe for the BEST friendship.
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  • What are the important ingredients that you need?
  • What are the steps that you take to build the best friendship?

An ongoing letter

Start a letter and mail it (or walk it to your friend’s house and pop it in their letter box) and ask them to reply. You might like to tell them what it is that you enjoy about your friendship with them or you might just want to share a funny story.

​How long can you keep the letter going back and forth?

Changing the pattern in
​the brain

Check out this video from Jo and Harold which talks about lots of the amazing things that your brain can do. Find out how your brain can help you to come up with a new pattern to help you feel better when things don't go to plan.

Give these activities a try after you have watch the video:
  • Work through some scenarios where you might want to try and change the pattern in your brain here.
  • With your family, download our Powerful positivity Learning Experience and work through the questions together here.
  • Check out the Aunty Dee website, where you can share your problems and work through how you could solve them here.
  • Give our Brain power work sheet a go here.
  • Check out the Fact Sheet Our amazing brain and give Harold's quiz a go here.

Permission granted

Do you love to take photos when you are hanging out with your friends and family? It's important to ask for permission and to consider other peoples feelings when taking photos or sharing photos of others.

Together as a family, download Harold's Learning Experience and work through the questions with your family here.

Family movie night

Take some time out of your busy day to curl up on the couch together and watch something that you can enjoy as a family.

Here are some ideas:
  • Watch a movie that the adults enjoyed when they were children
  • Watch family videos - this could be of family holidays, weddings or of when you were little

What to do if someone is mean to you when connecting online

Our Ambassador John Parsons is an expert in internet safety. In this video he  talks about what we can do if we have experienced someone being mean online or using other technology like texting. 

It’s important to remember that – despite using technology – cyber-bullying still depends on real people to spread and respond to it, so people are the key to shutting it down. 

For further tips check out Harold's factsheet 'What can I do if I'm bullied online?' here.

Spot the difference

We change lots as we grow older. We look different, we act different and we like different things. But some things about us still stay the same!

Can you spot the difference if you look at a photo of yourself when you were a baby, and a photo yourself now?

Together as a family, download Harold's Learning Experience and work through the questions with your family here.

Have a family games night

Get together with the whole whānau and play some games together one evening. 

Here are some ideas:
  • Try Harold's board game from your activity pack 
  • Play a card game
  • Play a game like 'I Spy' or 'Simon Says'
  • Play charades
  • Come up with your own creative game specially for your family

Read a book together

Do you have a book that you think your whole family would like? Why not enjoy reading it together! 

Take turns reading out loud - each person can read a page. You could even try using different voices for each of the different characters!

Safety tips for social media profiles

Our Ambassador John Parsons is an expert in internet safety. In this video for adults he gives advice on how to make sure children are only connecting with people they know on social media. He also talks through the importance of creating visibility of family, friends and community through social media to help keep children safe online. 

For other tips on keeping safe online check out Harold's Fact Sheet 'How can we keep safe online?' here.
​This video is for parents and adults
This video is for parents and adults

How to keep safe when connecting with others while playing online games

Our Ambassador John Parsons is an expert in internet safety. In this video for adults, John talks through the comparison with the online world and the offline world. We wouldn't talk to people we don't know offline, telling them personal information. This same rule applies for people online.

For other tips on keeping safe online check out Harold's Fact Sheet 'How can we keep safe online?' here.

What's that noise?

What do you do when things get hard and you feel like giving up? It's always a good idea to stop and think about what to do or what to say.

Together as a family, download Harold's Learning Experience and work through the questions with your family here.

International meal night

Draw a country out of a hat and cook a meal from that country together with your whanau. You could even learn how to say a few words or sayings from that countries language, which you can practice saying while enjoying the meal together. 
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