Leechburg students learn about their emotions and how to handle them

It’s been an emotional six weeks for some students at David Leech Elementary School in Leechburg.

And that’s a good thing, said Erin Hettrich, elementary art teacher and co-organizer of Color Monster, a new collaborative student program spotlighting emotional and mental health.

“This has been a difficult school year full of unknowns, uncertainty and a somewhat lack of traditional structure,” Hettrich said.

A popular children’s book titled “The Color Monster” was her inspiration behind the collaborative project of the same name between the elementary art department, fourth grade teachers, kindergarten teachers and the school’s occupational therapist.

“I stumbled past it when I walked by Mrs. (Joni) Oberdorf’s kindergarten room and I was inspired. I looked at the meaning and thought this couldn’t be anymore relevant right now.”

The pop-up book features a character named Color Monster whose emotions are all over the place.

Anne Brady Romaniw has served as district occupational therapist for three years.

She wanted to focus on mental health more last March, and began a curriculum right before the district shut down because of covid-19 restrictions.

“We were ahead of our game last year because I thought mental health was relevant, but it became even more crucial with covid-19,” Romaniw said.

The program is based on two different curricula: The Zones of Regulation, and Every Moment Counts.

About 60 students participated, with fourth graders serving as mentors to the kindergartners.

“Most of my students chose happy,” Oberdorf said. “That’s the easiest emotion to understand.

“It’s important at a young age to model and explore different emotions and know it’s OK to feel different ways.”

The kindergartners explored color-coded emotions represented by monsters in colors like green for calm, red for angry, black for fear, pink for love, blue for sad and yellow for happy.

She said the project helped put emotions into a more easily understood format for 5-year-olds.

Romaniw visited the kindergartners weekly, focusing on kindness along with emotion-based workshop activities. Oberdorf said her students enjoyed her weekly visits.

Fourth-graders participated in emotion exploration exercises that included breathing techniques, movement poses, grounding — “looking at all of your senses around you” — and writing down concerns in a “worry box.”

“The fourth-graders were very into the activities because it’s something new, different and a lot of kids like that they have a new way to talk about their emotions. Kids are busy, so this was a bit of mental break for them,” Romaniw said.

“I liked the breathing and movement poses,” said fourth grader Sydney Lautzenhiser.

A large Color Monster mural created by fourth graders using mixed mediums that included cardboard, oil pastels, paper and watercolor. The 9-foot by 15-foot piece hangs on the wall outside of the kindergarten room.

Color Monster was a graded project for the fourth graders and a non-graded experience for the kindergartners.

Hettrich said understanding one’s emotions is a topic that needs to be discussed more often.

“As a teacher, I’ve noticed that a child that’s more emotionally self-aware is, overall, more successful,” Hettrich said.

Romaniw said fifth graders just completed the second week of their positive mental health program.

“We’re just trying to do a lot more to promote mental health in the entire school.”