That's a wrap!
has warmed our hearts 
and will keep us smiling 
all the way into 2025.Here’s our new COGmas 2024 Padlet featuring this year’s winners
NOW THAT’S WHAT WE CALL COGMAS!
A very warm and festive
WELCOME TO COGMAS 2024!
open to MEMBERS | PAST MEMBERS | NON MEMBERS
COGmas is an annual festive educational gift from Emotion Works for busy Primary, Early Years & ASN teachers and practitioners to help keep your spirits high and your classrooms cheerful over the last few weeks of term.
On this page you’ll find lots of festive resources and teaching ideas to help you take part in our
NOW THAT’S WHAT I CALL COGMAS activity challenge to be in with a chance of winning one of our COGulous giveaways.
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PRIMARY RESOURCE
Introducing the Emotion Cogs
If your learners aren’t already familiar with the Emotion Cogs, this is our 5 Cog Model for a helpful introduction.
Provided here as a B&W worksheet for pupils to create and colour their own, and as a coloured slide in the PDF 5 Cogs & 10 words slideshow.
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PRIMARY RESOURCE
5 Cogs & 10 Words
Show the 5 Cog Model on-screen along with subsequent slides to help you unpack 10 different COGmas Emotions using the Emotion Works approach.
Includes a printable activity sheet for follow up work.
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PRIMARY RESOURCE
Cogmas Bauble
Activity Pack
25 Slides and worksheets with a Cog Bauble theme to create your COGmas displays, compose festive stories, and engage in single cog work.
See the weekly Primary Activity sections below for examples & ideas for using these.
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EARLY LEARNING
Foundation Language
Discussion Slides
Print out to look at each slide as a poster or show on screen to support your conversations that help you tap in to cog foundation language.
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EARLY LEARNING
Symbols to support COGmas Conversations
A symbol set of 70 picture symbols plus extra words & prompts to support your learning conversations alongside your COGmas activities.
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EARLY LEARNING
Emotion Characters
Black & White characters for printing out, cutting up, colouring, making into puppets or card games.
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WEEK 1: 2nd - 6th December
COGULOUS DISPLAYS & DECORATIONS
🎵 It’s beginning to look a lot like COGmas all around our school!
Get your classrooms, corridors and performance spaces ready for COGmas!
The activity ideas for Week 1 encourage you to explore the cog concepts (Primary Programme) and foundation language (Early Learning) through art & craft activities while also helping to decorate your classrooms, corridors and performance spaces in preparation for your showcase of COGmas work in week 3.
CLICK HERE FOR PRIMARY ACTIVITY IDEAS & EXAMPLES
Oh COGmas Tree
-cog baubles & other decorations
Create individual, class or communal COGmas trees as part of your Emotion Works teaching, with the added bonus of decorating your school environment with a festive feeling!
The round shape and bright colours of the Emotion Cogs lend themselves very well to creating baubles for tree decorations. Use your Emotion Works class resources, the DIY cog print outs or resources from the Bauble activity pack; or use craft paper with round or cog shaped templates. Paper chains are also a lovely tree decoration and very easy to link in with an Emotion Works lesson.
Cog learning activities could include…
- Cog bauble or paper chain links & sequences where a particular Chistmas word or trigger is explored.
- Single cog focus activities – for example a Body Sensations tree with red baubles showing sensation words, or a blue regulation paper chain with lots of strategies written or drawn on the links.
COGmas Crafts
Here are some ideas for overlapping Emotion Works learning with festive crafting.
- Make Christmas wreaths – in single cog colours (eg a red Christmas Body Sensations wreath, blue Regulation Strategies wreath etc.) or combine all the cog concepts together in a multi-coloured wreath like the one shown below.
- Create a display of Cog Snowflakes – on a wall or hanging from a line or the ceiling
- Create gift wrapped boxes in cog colours and with cog words or phrases on them. These could be used for party games or or other learning activities depending on what you might put inside! See weeks 2 & 3 for some suggestions.
CLICK HERE FOR EARLY LEARNING ACTIVITY IDEAS & EXAMPLES
COGulous Baubles - featuring foundation language words & symbols
Here are some ideas to help decorate your learning and communal spaces with a festive feel. Link in with our Early Learning COGmas character, word and symbol resources, and members could use of their wider supply of hard copy and digital resources too.
COGmas Characters & Paper Chain People
We loved this wreath idea from Dunblane Primary 1 which could be used in an Early Years setting by adding a picture of one of our Christmas Characters in the middle of the wreath and adding word strips and symbols around the outside.
And the good old people paper chain activity would also make lovely decorations. Use our COGmas characters for ideas for making a chain showing lots of different emotions in a row, or choose 1 emotion per chain and add in words and drawings for triggers, body sensations, behaviours and regulation ideas.
If it’s been a while or you’re not sure how to make a people paper chain – here’s a wiki-how to help!
COGmas Boxes
Create gift wrapped boxes in cog colours and add foundation language words & phrases on them to look at and talk about together.
These could be used for party games or or other learning activities depending on what you might put inside! See weeks 2 & 3 for some suggestions.
WEEK 2: 9th - 13th December
COGTASTIC CLASSROOM CREATIONS
🎵 What’s your Story for COGmas Glory!
🎵 What fun it is to laugh and sing a COGmas song tonight!
Get creative for COGmas with festive stories, drama, songs and more!
Take a look at our Christmas themed Literacy Padlet for some initial ideas and inspiration
Week 2 activities help you get creative with the Cogs (Primary Programme) and foundation language (Early Learning) using festive texts, songs, adverts, games, drama and artwork as learning stimuli. Simply enjoy some of the creative ideas shared in this section, or develop your own if you’re feeling inspired!
CLICK HERE FOR MORE PRIMARY ACTIVITY IDEAS & EXAMPLES
Comprehension & Composition of Festive Texts
The Emotion Works cog model lends itself extremely well to story comprehension and composition around emotional narrative. This is because with storytelling about an emotional event there will be mention of many, if not all of the emotion cog concepts. The associations and links between the cogs in the Cog Model visuals help to connect the different aspects of a story together while also providing an opportunity to look at each of the component parts, or cogs, in turn.
Take a look at the examples below showing a selection of cog tools, models and worksheets that have been used for literacy activities with a festive theme. Choose your own festive stimulus (Story book, Poem, TV Programme, Movie, Song, Drama Scenario, Piece of Artwork, Animation, Christmas Advert etc.) and use the cogs as a framework to unpack the content, or compose something new.
Seasonal Songs & Music to inspire Cog discussion, song writing, drama & dance
COGmas 2023 songs – watch, listen and unpack
- Rocking around the COGmas Tree (Bonhill Primary)
- The 5 Days of COGmas (Mount Vernon Primary)
- Behaviour Bells (Longniddry Primary)
COGmas 2024 songs – write your own
Choose a popular Christmas song that you could change the words for to make it into a parody type song that shows your understanding of the Emotion Cogs. (Note: we don’t advise using a carol or religious song in this way).
Happy & Joyful Songs & Music
- It’s the most wonderful time of the year
- In Dolce Jubilo
- Holly Jolly Christmas
Songs for exploring sad triggers
- The little boy that Santa Clause forgot
- It’ll be lonely this Christmas
- Blue Christmas
- Stay Another Day
Christmas Carols – Rejoice
Explore the celebratory language and joyful wording in Christmas Carols. What emotions are mentioned and how are they portrayed? What’s the cause of the celebrations? How else can the cog concepts be explored?
Other Storyline Songs
- Rudolf the Red Nosed Reindeer
- Frosty the Snowman
- I saw Mommy kissing Santa Claus
- Santa Claus is Coming to Town
COGmas Cognifiers & Coggles!
- Make sets of festive cognifying glasses to take a coggle lens to your festive texts.
- Design multicoloured festive ‘Coggles’ matched to the 5, 6 or 7 cog model you’re using to look at and discuss the different aspects of emotion portrayed in festive stories, images, adverts, songs etc.
LUCKY DIP
Nativity / Christmas Show reflections
Use real life experiences to unpack the emotional aspects of performing
Sensory Story
Look up Christmas Sensory Stories and choose one to engage with or write one that could relate to the cogs.
Create a Christmas Party Game using the Cogs
Musical Emotions – when the music stops everyone has to freeze like a statue displaying a different named emotion each time, or displayed on a sign.
Hot potato / Pass the Bomb (naming body sensations / regulation strategies / emotion words / happy triggers / sad behaviours etc)
Cog Corners
Dr COGmas Drama
Set up a role play / drama activity for paying a visit to Dr COGmas.
Tell Dr COGmas what the problem is (Trigger) and how it’s making you feel (Emotion Word). Can Dr COGmas think of something to help you feel better (Regulation Strategy).
Or write ‘Agony Aunt’ style letters to Dr COGmas. Replies could be written or discussed as. agroup.
Christmas Drama Scenario
Use Trigger – Emotion – Behaviour cogs to plan out a drama sequence. Act out / mime for the rest of the class. Can they guess / describe what happened? Use more cogs once you get the hang of it.
Example – you feast on too many sweeties, you’re happy but then youre sad because you feel sick. Show feeling sick in your behaviour.
COGmas Worksheet challenge
If you look at our 5, 6 and 7 part Bauble Worksheets, or the Noteboard and Story Board tools and worksheets, you'll see separate spaces or sections for different cogs. This COGmas tree worksheet developed by a teacher at Lochfield Primary does the same, with sections to focus on 4 of the cogs. Can you and your pupils design something similar? Maybe a COGmas Stocking or a Coggle Hat?
Christmas Advert Examples in the EW Library
- St Joseph’s PS – a slideshow sharing a P4/3 class project looking at the first 5 cogs in 5 different adverts
- Dunblane PS – watch a video of a Cog Conversation about the ‘Inner Child’ McDonald’s advert
- Two other practice examples by an EW school advisor looking at the Sainsbury’s The Truce advert, and the Excitable Edgar John Lewis advert.
CLICK HERE FOR EARLY LEARNING ACTIVITY IDEAS & EXAMPLES
COGmas 2023 songs – watch, listen and unpack
- Rocking around the COGmas Tree (Bonhill Primary)
- The 5 Days of COGmas (Mount Vernon Primary)
- Behaviour Bells (Longniddry Primary)
COGmas 2024 songs – write your own
Choose a popular Christmas song that you could change the words for to make it into a parody type song that shows your understanding of the Emotion Cogs. (Note: we don’t advise using a carol or religious song in this way).
Happy & Joyful Songs & Music
- It’s the most wonderful time of the year
- In Dolce Jubilo
- Holly Jolly Christmas
Songs for exploring sad triggers
- The little boy that Santa Clause forgot
- It’ll be lonely this Christmas
- Blue Christmas
- Stay Another Day
Christmas Carols – Rejoice
Explore the celebratory language and joyful wording in Christmas Carols. What emotions are mentioned and how are they portrayed? What’s the cause of the celebrations? How else can the cog concepts be explored?
Other Storyline Songs
- Rudolf the Red Nosed Reindeer
- Frosty the Snowman
- I saw Mommy kissing Santa Claus
- Santa Claus is Coming to Town
Winter Wonderland Song Prompt Sheet and Activity Ideas
Here’s an idea for ‘piggy backing’ on a well known festive song to extend and develop Emotion Works foundation language around Emotion Words / Naming and Behaviours / Showing Emotions.
- Watch the 4 minute video then read over some practical ideas below.
- Print out the prompt sheet on to A4 or A3 paper. Cut off the bottom strip of symbols and cut into individual tiles and add in the ‘happy’ and ‘walking’ symbol as per the original song.
- Encourage the children to walk around in a happy way as you all sing ‘La la la la …’ to the tune of the chorus (replacing the words ‘in the meadow…up to ‘when your in town’).
- Comment on the displays of happiness while walking around, using face, body, movement and making noises language. Or ask a child to ‘freeze frame’ in a happy pose to invite the other children to observe and comment.
- Also interchange in other words for happy – such as cheery etc., and then for grumpy, joyful and frightened too.
- There are lots of ways to mix in the other emotion words and match up the different behaviours. Let children take a turn to select their own version of the verse and put their choice of symbols in place, or ask them to help you plan out the whole song together before singing and dancing through the whole thing.
- Add the song sheet into a poly pocket or laminate, and display on the wall for your children to use on their own to practice and extend their own learning.
download Symbol Song Prompt
LUCKY DIP
It’s a Book Wrap
Wrap a festive story book in Christmas paper, and also wrap another box, bag or container with a selection of symbols inside linked to the events and illustrations in the story.
Give a symbol to each child to hold and ask them to listen and watch out for the word when they hear or see it. They can stick it in the book with a piece of blutac to the correct page.
(Top tip – pull out and photocopy a selection of hard copy symbols onto paper & cut up for the activity so you don’t lose or misplace the originals)
Dr COGmas
Set up a role play for paying a visit to a member of staff playing Dr COGmas.
Make a choice board of uncomfortable emotions to tell Dr COGmas how you’re feeling (Emotion Word).
Can children tell you why they feel that way / what happened? (Trigger)
Maybe they can say where in their body they’re noticing the feeling and what it feels like? (Body Sensation)
Can Dr COGmas suggest something to help the child feel better? (Regulation Strategy).
Create a Christmas Party Game using Foundation Language & Symbols
Musical Emotions – when the music stops everyone has to freeze like a statue displaying a different named emotion each time, or displayed on a sign.
Pass the Parcel with symbols inside to name and sort onto a picture print out of COGmas Characters (Choose 2 COGmas characters to tuck in to the paper. For the Symbols – include emotion words, behaviors triggers, body sensations and regulation strategies too.
Emotional Christmas Singing & Dancing
Provide a collection of pictures to represent favourite Christmas songs and a selection of Emotion Word Symbols.
Invite children to choose a symbol for how they want to sing the song and move / dance to portray the emotion in their voice, facial expressions and behaviours.
Staff can comment on the behaviours or ask children to describe how they will show or showed they were cheerful, sad, frightened etc.
Sensory Story
Look up Christmas Sensory Stories and choose one to engage with that could relate to exploring and representing different Emotions and foundation language.
CLICK HERE
Comprehension & Composition of Festive Texts
The Emotion Works cog model lends itself extremely well to story comprehension and composition around emotional narrative. This is because with storytelling about an emotional event there will be mention of many, if not all of the emotion cog concepts.
Comprehension Ideas and Examples
- Make sets of festive cognifying glasses or coggles in single colours or multicoloured matched to the 5, 6 or 7 cog model you’re learning about to look at and discuss the different aspects of emotion portrayed in festive stories, images, adverts, songs etc.
- You could also design and / or make a set of ‘Coggle Hats’ in single Cog colours, taking inspiration from the COGmas Characters.
- Or Christmas Stockings featuring the
- If working together across the classes, you may like to work together to make a COGmas display in a central area of your school, for example a corridor of dangling festive cogs or paper chains in cog colours, or you might think about using the space and equipment in your Gym, Dining Hall or Playground.
- We like the idea of creating a large COGmas central wall or table area ready for your work to be displayed during the 12 Days of COGmas so that youcan all share your COGtastic work as you create it.
- Create gift wrapped boxes in cog colours and with cog words or phrases on them. These could be used for party games or or other learning activities depending on what you might put inside!
Resources you could use
- The Bauble Cog Sheets
- Cog Cards from
- other cog card sets you have. If you’ve already created a display during days 1-4 then you’re half way there – just make use of it to build your ‘story’ by recording the discussion you have using the cogs in the display. Members who have an Interactive Symbol Display resource set up could use this too.
Resources you could use
- Single cog cards or sheets side by side or joined together.
- Cog Note board or Storyboard tools, or worksheets.
- The COGmas Bauble resource pack provides single sheets and a 5-part story board included.
- Members can also access a 6-part or 7-part bauble story
ACTIVITY IDEAS:
- Your COGmas story can be told from the perspective of a fictional character in a Christmas book, film, advert, song or your own imagination.
- Alternatively, your story can be based on a real life scenario or memory, or it can be about someone you know, or someone in the news.
- You might choose to create a class or group story using
- Start with one of the Emotion Words on the orange cog card or sheet and go from there. Build up your story as you move along on to the other cog cards – including the Trigger, Body Sensations, Behaviours and Regulation Strategies cogs. Plus Intensity and Influences if you’re working with those cogs too. We’d be very happy to see stories shared from these activities.
- If you’re not too familiar with the Emotion Works Cog System use the word slides in Activity Pack 2 to help you structure your Cog Conversation about a particular word. This should help you see how the cogs help structure emotional narrative and story telling about different emotional events and experiences.
- After working on composing an emotion story together, or discussing one of the word slides, pupils could then work in groups, pairs or individually to create their own story about the same emotion discussed, or a different one from the word list. Learners from member schools could make use of their A3 Storyboard tool, a story board worksheet or use one of the new festive Bauble versions of these provided in Activity Pack 1.
- ‘Cog Confident’ pupils might manage to compose a festive story by simply referring to a Cog Model rather than setting it out on a storyboard. Any written out versions always look great when highlighters in the cog colours are then used to highlight the different words & phrases in the story that relate to the cog concepts.
- Another idea for adding a festive touch to your story compositions would be to create 5-part, 6-part or 7-part paper chains to think about the different cog components of the story separately and then to link them up in a single story chain.
- Emotion Works Practitioners often use the cogs to ‘unpack’ the different aspects of emotion in a Literacy Stimulus – take a look at some festive examples of this on the Emotion Works Christmas Padlet
- For #COGmas2024 we’re particularly keen to see stories shared through artwork, drama, song, comedy, jokes or any other creative ideas you have that we haven’t thought of or seen before!
Seasonal Songs
Claire's COGmas Creations
Create individual, class or communal COGmas trees as part of your Emotion Works teaching, with the added bonus of decorating your school environment with a festive feeling!
Our Christmas Themed Literacy Padlet
Create individual, class or communal COGmas trees as part of your Emotion Works teaching, with the added bonus of decorating your school environment with a festive feeling!
Behaviour Bells
https://x.com/longniddryps/status/1734324135889645830
WEEK 3: 16th - 20th December
YOUR BIG COGMAS SHOWCASE
🎵 Time for Parties and Celebrations... People Singing Christmas Songs
Share your COGmas creations in an end of term assembly or showcase of your choice.
In our final week of COGmas it’s time to show off your COGulous Displays and Decorations and all of your COGtastic Creations. We’ll be awarding resource giveaways for our favourite decorations, displays and creations posted over the COGmas period, and there will also be bigger prizes for entries that demonstrate working together across schools and settings to showcase your COGmas work in a week 3 showcase.
CLICK HERE FOR SHOWCASE IDEAS & EXAMPLES
- An end of term assembly sharing Emotion Works COGmas creations or performances – the Xmas Factor?!
- A communal or class-based parent event
- Create a photo slideshow or video tour of COGmas work
- A large COGmas art display
- A song performance of one of our COGmas suggestions, or a new song you’ve composed
- A festive drama, animation, story or piece of poetry relating to the Cogs or Cog language
- An account of a COGmas party including Emotion Works party games
WATCH OUT FOR IDEAS COMING SOON, OR SIGN UP TO OUR COGMAS MAILING LIST FOR UPDATES
Live X (Twitter) Feed
@EmotionWorksCIC = #COGmas2024 posts
NB - you'll need to be logged in to X to see the live feed on this page
A look back at COGmas 2023
'The 12 Days of COGmas'
🎵 Last COGmas we gave you some art
And the very next day, you made a display!
Our theme for COGmas last year was The 12 Days of Cogmas when we set a series of Emotion Works festive activity challenges and provided 12 giveaway gifts for our favourites. Take a look over the entries and winners from last year’s challenge in our COGmas 2023 Padlet.
Join our COGmas facebook group, take part on X or sign up to our COGmas mailing list
COGmas Diary 2024
- Week 1: 2nd-6th December: COGULOUS DISPLAYS & DECORATIONS – get your classrooms, corridors and performance spaces ready for COGmas!
- Week 2: 9-13th December: COGTASTIC CLASSROOM CREATIONS – get creative for COGmas with festive stories, drama, songs and more!
- Week 3: 16-20th December: YOUR BIG COGMAS SHOWCASE Share your COGmas creations in an end of term assembly or showcase of your choice.
🎵 So here it is Merry COGmas everybody’s having fun… Look to December now, it’s only Just begun!
Feeling Nostalgic?
LAST COGMAS
(2023)
Take a look back at all the COGulous entries and winners who took part in our ’12 Days of COGmas’ activity challenge last year
Feeling Inspired?
INTRODUCING
COGMAS 2024
The Emotion Works Characters welcome you to COGmas 2024 with a word and cog activity challenge.
COGMAS ASSEMBLY
Do your Staff and Pupils have the Xmas Factor?
