Chiara’s Children’s Book Creates a Buzz at UTM

Over the past year, I had the opportunity to work with the CCDMP to develop a knowledge translation product to communicate the research and evidence-based programming featured within the Building Emotion Regulation and Empathy (BEE) program. The goal of my knowledge translation product was to create a resource that an educator/caregiver and child can engage with together to learn, practice, and model emotion regulation, empathy for the self, and empathy for others (i.e., The 3Es). With the support of my supervisor, Dr. Ruth Speidel, and PSY401 course instructor, Dr. Doug VanderLaan, I created a children’s book for children ages three to six to highlight the 3Es. I also created an accompanying educator guide to help lead discussions and activities related to the messaging of the book.

My book, Bella at the BEE Farm, focuses on teaching children the 3Es through the main character Bella’s field trip to a bee farm. Bella experiences frustration, anger, guilt, sadness, and empathy throughout the book, but her teacher, Ms. Johnson, is there to help. Ms. Johnson teaches Bella techniques to improve her emotion regulation and empathy. The relationship between Bella and Ms. Johnson in the story highlights the critical role that adults play in fostering positive social-emotional development in children, especially during early childhood when these capacities are taking shape.

I chose to create a children’s book that caregivers and educators can easily incorporate into their existing “story time” or literacy routines they have with their child/student. I targeted my book towards children ages three to six to ensure that I was focusing on a key age group within the broader BEE project audience that would particularly benefit from the book’s messaging and fictional, literacy-based approach. The accompanying educator guide features reading prompts, post-reading activities, and multi-media recommendations to reinforce messaging about healthy emotion regulation and empathy. 

I had a wonderful experience creating Bella at the BEE Farm and learning more about emotion regulation, empathy, knowledge translation, and children’s fiction and literature! 

To read Bella at the BEE Farm, please find a flipbook here. 

To read the educator guide, please find a PDF here.

To learn more about knowledge translation at the UTM Department of Psychology, please visit here.