All kids benefit from practicing mindfulness. Who wouldn’t love the kids and young adults we work with to become more focused, calm, in control, and self-aware? Mindfulness is a technique that can help teach and strengthen those abilities over time. By practicing mindfulness, people can learn to become more aware of their own thoughts, feeling, […]
Why Positive Self-Talk is Worth It
Positive thinking is a powerful tool that can improve your health, help you manage stress, overcome challenges, and make better choices. The idea is that by changing your thinking, you can control your emotions and your actions. Positive thinking starts with positive self-talk. Self-talk is the voice in our head that goes on throughout the […]
Art Activities for Social Emotional Learning
Art is such a powerful tool to help shape the minds of kids and young adults. Simply put, there are many benefits to using art as a way to teach new skills. Art is often non-threatening to kids and young adults. It is seen as a fun and hands-on activity, rather than hard work. Because […]
Helping Kids with Social Emotional Needs
As a special education teacher, you would think the bulk of my job would be to pre-teach and re-teach academic content, provide educational supports, assess student growth, monitor academic goals, and provide direction instruction in a number of areas. While it’s true that special educators do all of those things (and way more), we need […]
50+ De-escalation Strategies
Being able to de-escalate and defuse situations with kids and young adults is an extremely helpful skill. Kids and young adults who become emotionally overwhelmed or irritated in a situation may begin to express their emotions in challenging ways. Some examples of these behaviors might include aggressive posturing, yelling, throwing items, swearing, and refusing to […]
50+ Free SEL Resources
Use this list of free resources to use as social emotional learning activities to help you work with kids and young adults. As a special educator for 10 years, I can say without a doubt that we need more social emotional learning supports for kids and young adults. Some of my best days in the […]
How to Teach Positive Self-Talk
Self-talk is the inner voice that goes on inside our heads throughout our waking hours. Positive self-talk is when we talk to ourselves in a reassuring, kind, and more optimistic way. It’s the difference from saying to yourself: “I’m an idiot, I can’t believe I failed this math test” or “I’m disappointed in how I […]
How to Create a Coping Strategies Notebook
A coping strategies binder is a resource to help calm kids and young adults who are feeling angry, anxious, sad, or stressed. Within the binder, kids add coping strategies that work best for them, such as listening to music, drawing, practicing yoga, or using positive self-talk. Those really are just a few out of many […]
10 Best Times to Practice Mindfulness in the Classroom
Mindfulness means being present in the moment with your thoughts and feelings without making judgements. It is being aware of what is happening but not being overwhelmed. Practicing mindfulness on a regular basis can help you feel calmer, happier, and be more in tune with yourself. People of all ages and abilities can practice mindfulness, […]
100 Coping Strategies for Anger, Anxiety, and More
Coping strategies are techniques that help reduce negative feelings when someone is feeling under stress. Those feelings might be the result of anxiety, anger, depression, or just general day-to-day stress. Practicing coping strategies can help kids and young adults learn how to manage their emotions in a positive way. Every child or young adult should […]
