This example shows how to use a typical orange cog resource (a book) and unpack it to develop early yellow cog vocabulary.

In the Early Years, children need only develop an understanding of the vocabulary used for each cog concept, NOT an understanding of the cogs themselves.

This Early Years Practitioner used the emotion word “happy“, to explore the vocabulary of emotion triggers.

The book, “What makes me happy?” by Catherine Anholt, was familiar to nursery children. After reading, conversation often moved to what made the children feel happy. The practitioner seized this natural interest to develop the children’s emotional vocabulary, using symbol prompts to aid understanding. Initially, children worked with practitioners to match the symbols to the words and images in the book, creating an interactive story board. The board had the orange happy symbol and the green smile symbol in place prior to the activity. A selection of yellow trigger symbols were added by children.

In a follow up lesson, children examined the yellow triggers section of the symbol book to identify personal happy triggers, creating a new symbol board with class happy triggers.