For the first week of each new half term we have a PSHE (Personal, Social and Health Education) focus at my school. This past week the focus was on our emotions and worries and helping the children develop strategies to deal with them. I always like to bring in some texts to support our learning and this week I thought that Silly Billy by Anthony Browne would fit perfectly. For those that don't know the story Billy is a bit of a worrier. He worries about hats, birds and all manner of other things. They keep him lying awake at night. His parents try and reassure him but sadly the worries still persist. Eventually after a stay at his grandma's she introduces him to Worry Dolls and things start improving. The text was a fantastic way to begin talking about worries. When we first learnt that Billy worried about hats a few of the children giggled so it was an excellent opportunity to highlight that different people worry about different things and whether laughter was the best thing. How could we help a friend who had a worry we couldn't understand? What ensued was a super discussion about worries, the type of worries children their age had (a very revealing discussion) and what to do if you had a worry and who your support network would be. Then we made our own Worry Dolls. I was so proud of my class in this task, both for their discussion and the worry dolls they made. All I gave them was a peg and some yarn and used it as an opportunity for them to show their independence in finding other materials to use. What happened as a result was a fantastic selection of Worry Dolls that the children took home and could use as a basis for talking about worries with family. Some of the children also learnt how to tie knots and solve other tricky problems whilst making them! All in all a really lovely lesson that had my class discussing, being creative and working together to share ideas. Have you ever used Silly Billy or any other of Anthony Browne's books before? I think he is a wonderful writer and illustrator and I know if I use one of his books the children will love it. I would love to hear how you have used some of his books in the comments below!