Classroom Champions: Nurse wants to help students manage emotions with LEGO kit

NORTH CHARLESTON, S.C. (WCSC) - A North Charleston school nurse is working to help her students better understand the importance of emotional intelligence.

Liberty Hill Academy school nurse Lauren Sailor teaches her third through fifth graders how to identify emotions and use relaxation skills and mindfulness techniques to help manage their emotional reactions better.

“They all need some behavior modification,” Sailor says. “A lot of it is trauma. We’re a trauma-focused program. We start the day with awareness groups.”

Sailor says it can be hard for kids to open up and express how they feel. She says emotional awareness can be taught through play and non-verbal communication.

Sailor hopes to do this by using the LEGO “Build Me Emotions” kit, which comes with different characters who have a wide rage of emotions.

She says not all children have the vocabulary to express how they are feeling on the inside.

“Anything we can do to sit and be hands-on while talking I think this can open up and be an ice breaker for the younger kids and what that means,” she says. “Just to be able to provide them with the basics and what they need in the classroom means a lot.”

For her her Donor’s Choose project, she hopes adding a “Build Me Emotions” LEGO set will give her students the opportunity to get in tune with their emotions and how they can trigger impulsive and aggressive behaviors.

Click here to donate and become a Classroom Champion.

As of Monday morning, the project still needed $208.

All donations are tax-deductible.

Donors Choose collects your money, then buys the items and sends them to the teacher.

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