SUNSHINE CIRCLES® – Launceston TAS

Nurture your classroom with play!

Learn how to introduce this amazing, evidence based, social-emotional development group to your school.  Sunshine Circles ® are adult-directed and structured, but rather than talking, the teacher leads playful, cooperative and nurturing activities. Sunshine Circles can very quickly and dramatically improve the quality of the classroom and provide teachers with resources to maintain an emotionally positive and cognitively enriched environment.

Sunshine Circles® is a group based on Theraplay® principles that focuses on the social and emotional development of children. Sunshine Circles gives children an opportunity to practice their self-regulation skills, co-regulation skills and to feel encouraged to have a go at achievable challenges. Educators lead playful, cooperative and nurturing activities to create an atmosphere of fun, caring, acceptance and encouragement. The goal is to enhance children’s social, emotional and cognitive development.

Children generally embrace the three rules of Sunshine Circles… No Hurts, Stick Together and Have Fun!… and carry them with them throughout the day. Sunshine Circles provides educators with the resources to maintain an emotionally positive and cognitively enriched environment.

Sunshine Circles strives to:

• Create an atmosphere that is warm, nurturing, engaging and challenging
• Meet the basic needs of children so they can be freed emotionally to explore their world
• Promote warm relationships between children and adults and friendships among peers
• Engage hard-to-reach children
• Bring fun and exuberance into the lives of children
• Place emphasis on cooperation between children
• Encourage children to learn and practice self- control
• Enhance trust of others through concrete, personal and positive experiences
• Help children with regulatory disorders and tactile issues
• Simultaneously address cognitive, social and emotional development

This training is designed for teachers, educators, support staff and the professionals who support them; social workers, school counsellors/psychologists, early childhood specialists etc. Sunshine Circles can be used with children of any age, but is best known for pre-school/early years ages. Attendees must attend both days of training to receive their certification.

Presented by Melita Bond.