this ‘What are they thinking?’ resource has 72 cards with a character or characters and a thinking bubble. The idea is that the child must come up with something that the character is thinking. Look at where the thinking bubble is pointing for those pictures with several characters. You can of course ask what they think the other characters are thinking, feeling or why they are behaving in that way.
There is a whole range of emotions, body language, positive and negative behaviour cards included.
This is a great inference tool for children to look carefully at what is happening in the picture or to look carefully at the facial expression or body language. Great for speech and language activities as well as social and emotional. Children will learn how to really look at something and analyse what they can see. They will learn to infer what is happening. This will help them with reading different situations in their everyday life and of course for reading comprehension activities.
This is a ‘talking’ activity rather than a writing one but you could print the cards bigger, on A3 rather than A4, laminate them and they could be used with a dry wipe pen.
They could be used for one to one working, small groups or circle-time. This is also a great ice-breaker resource to help warm up the child before working with them.
This is a HUGE pack of words for emotions, feelings and conditions all with a hessian style background. These will be fabulous for your more ‘natural style displays’. Help create a calm environment linked to nature for your pupils.
Included in the pack is *120 emotion, feelings, condition words for display *2 Banners *Bordered paper in landscape and portrait, with and without lines, *20 cloud shaped quotes, *A-Z Alphabet for making your own words
Stress
This resource is about stress and coping strategies.
Some stress can be good because it can actually encourage and motivate you to work harder. When you get too much stress it can make you feel overwhelmed. Finding a balance is key to managing stress.
Stress bucket
The bucket is a metaphor for the body and the water is a metaphor for stress and coping strategies. This resource will lead the child through making a stress bucket and learning how to use it.
Levels of stress
Depending on the person, the level of water in the bucket may already be high due to past experiences. Stress entering the body isn’t necessarily filling up an empty bucket. It is adding to what is already there.
Every day stressors can soon overflow the bucket. There are always people and children who blow up over the slightest thing and this is probably because their stress is quite high all of the time.
Turning on the tap
Turning the tap on is a metaphor for letting out the stress and the best way to do this is through coping strategies. Coping strategies can be anything that the calms the person down from ‘calming breathing’ to ‘having a run’. It might also be things they enjoy doing, something that makes them feel happy. It can be individual to the person on what works for them. What relieves their stress?
Included in the pack
Stress scales. These could be used as bookmarks and taken away.
A4 poster that could be stuck to the wall as a reminder
24 additional supporting worksheets
An A4 bucket and pocket – pupils can put their stress INTO the bucket by using the pocket
Cloud and water for the craft
Different sizes of water droplets
Information sheets including examples of stressors, de-stressing ideas, physical body signs, and how it affects emotions and behaviour
This is a huge pack of resources to help children’s wellbeing. You can glue the pocket into an exercise book and then add things to the pocket that you think the child will find helpful.
An alternative would be to put all the resources in a folder for the child.
Brilliant kit for home learning and helping your child’s wellbeing
Included in this pack:
Pocket colour
Pocket black and white
Emotional register
List of feeling words
Star breathing
Thermometer for scaling
Jar activity
Bucket of happiness
Proud cloud
Relax tips
Relax top four
Starfish story
I made a difference sheet
Star of strengths
List of positive characteristics
Sleep tips
Grounding activity
Simple emotional register
Worry tree
Helping hand
5 a day for wellbeing
My favourites
Grateful flower
Physical feelings
Helpful thoughts
My family
I wish
This intervention is written for a group of four children and is led by an ELSA or teaching assistant. It covers emotions, relaxation and lessons around transition either into the next class or new school. It runs for approximately 40 minutes. It is pitched at junior aged children but would work for year 2 to year 3 too.
Children will work together in a group which will give them a sense of belonging. This helps to raise self-esteem.
All my interventions follow a similar structure:
Welcome and emotional register– welcome the children to the group, go over the circle time rules and talk about how they feel today.
Warm up – children really respond better if they have had chance to warm up and feel at ease by playing a game or activity. This may or may not be related to the learning objective.
Activity – this is where the children work on the learning objective.
Relaxation/Mindfulness – Children are more ready to go back to class if they are relaxed and calm.
Review of the session – Children talk about their learning experience and perhaps fill in a pupil feedback form on the session.
The paper resources for this intervention come in booklet form. Make one up to show the children at the start of your intervention but don’t make their booklets up straight away. Some weeks has a challenge for them to take away with them. Make their booklets up for their last session so they can take them away as a reminder. You can collect any evidence you require each week up to that point.
There is a simple assessment for this intervention.
This pack includes
Planning booklet – please read this first
Emotion fans
Circle time rules
Relaxation booklet
Pupil booklet
Assessment
Certificate
Pupil feedback
The Control your Thunder – ELSA Anger intervention is an ANGER management intervention for KS2 upwards.
Included in the pack is:
Planning booklet
Pupil booklet
Circletime rules
Relaxation cube
Emotion fans
ANGER posters
Supporting resources
Certificate of completion
There are five lessons which are based on a letter from the word ANGER
A is AWARENESS
N is NEGATIVE thoughts
G is GAUGING
E is EXPRESSING
R is RELAXATION
This is a huge set of feelings cards and definitions. There are 171 cards in the pack which print 8 to an A4 page. There is also a page of ideas included which are listed below.
There is a feeling word and a very simple definition. You can use these for introducing vocabulary to children. They are suitable for KS2 to Secondary.
I have included some little cards that you can fold so you can hide the definition if you wish and get the child to guess what it might mean.
They are in alphabetical order and there are at least 4 feeling words for each letter except for x y and z
Ideas:
Find the letters of your name and decide if you have felt those feelings
Pick a bundle of the cards and arrange into alphabetical order
Pick out some positive feelings
Pick out some difficult feelings
Find a feeling word beginning with a certain letter and write a sentence using it
Hide the definition and ask the child to guess what it might mean
Find all the feelings that would be synonyms of happy, sad, angry or scared
Think about your day and pick out all the feelings you have felt in that day.
Make a collage of….angry words., happy words, scared words, sad words
Start a feelings diary and pick out your main feeling for that day. Write it down and explain why you felt that way.
Pick a card and draw…. the facial expression, a picture of a time when you felt like that, a comic strip of what happened when you felt like that
Use speech bubbles and thinking bubbles to show what you were thinking or saying
Make your own feeling’s dictionary by picking out all the emotion words you have heard of, writing them down in alphabetical order and write a brief description of what it means.
Pick an ‘angry’ word. How could you calm yourself down if you felt like that?
Pick a word and think about the physical feelings you get when you have this emotion.
Pick a feeling and… make the face, use a mirror to practise, act it out with a friend, make up a scenario that would make you feel like that.
Make up a scenario for a child and get them to choose the feeling they would feel in those circumstances.
Pick a positive feeling and try and use the word as many times as you can in one day.
Pick a feeling card and write or talk about how someone might behave when they feel that feeling. What might they do?
Pick a feeling word and think about who could help you if you felt like that or how could you help yourself if you felt like that?
Pick a feeling card and see if you can find the opposite feeling. An example would be that happy is the opposite of sad.
Pick a difficult feeling word and think about how you could change that feeling to a more positive feeling. What could you do?
Lots of children suffer from low self-esteem and this workbook has 25 activities to help them grow their self-esteem. When children have low self-esteem it can stop them doing things, due to fear of failure, thoughts maybe very negative and they might criticise themselves, they might struggle with friendships, are quiet, lack confidence and perhaps don’t feel very happy a lot of the time. It can massively affect well being.
Hopefully this book will help them discover they can do lots of things, be positive, have friends, speak out, know their strengths and feel happy!
The second page in the file is blank if you want to print duplex and make an actual booklet but you could also just print off the page you are working on and do it with a group of children or even class of children.
This truth or lie game has 64 cards which are for sorting between something that is true and something that is a lie or that is false. There is a game board to make it more exciting and also for working with a group of children. There are a few supporting worksheets. Please check out the images for more information.
Children tell lies for lots of reasons. Before working on those it is important that children know the difference between a lie and the truth.
This is an anxiety booklet to help children understand their anxiety and find ways to cope with it.
There are 30 pages in the booklet which covers scaling, fight/flight, vocabulary, the worry tree, real worries as opposed to hypothetical worries, worry plans, breathing techniques, mindfulness, coping strategies, negative thinking, self talk and much more.
There are pages for pupils to show what they have learnt so far and there is a quiz at the end of the booklet. There is also a diary to take away to log any worries. This is offered in two different ways to cater for different needs. It also has a monster scale and some mandala colouring sheets.
This is a friendship potion activity for young children. It is visually appealing with clear images to help the pupils understand the words.
Make up the cauldron and bin with the pockets. Cut out and laminate the bubble circles. Simply help the pupil sort out those good qualities for a friend and put them into the cauldron to make their friendship potion. All the others go into the bin. Discuss each bubble as you look at it to ensure understanding and relate to the pupil’s experience where possible.
When you have finished the sorting activity ask the pupil to decorate the body shape to look like a friend and put all the bubbles around the body shape to reinforce ‘What makes a good friend’.
Included in the friendship potion activity pack:
Cauldron with pocket
Bin with pocket
18 positive bubbles for friendship
18 negative bubbles for friendship
Body sheet
This is ELSA Support’s Twinkle with respect intervention. It is written for children from approximately KS2 to KS3.
The Respect intervention is for a group of 6 children and is led by an ELSA or a teaching assistant. It covers emotions, relaxation, calming down techniques and learning objectives around respect. It runs for approximately 30-40 minutes, weekly for six weeks. There are lots of visuals, circle times and group activities along with lots of expression through drawing and writing.
Pupils will learn about emotions along with relaxation and coping skills each session. This knowledge and these skills will help them to become more emotionally literate. The coming together of a group fosters a sense of belonging and contributes towards higher self-esteem. Every opportunity should be taken to promote belonging and friendship.
This ‘Twinkle with respect intervention’ follows this structure
Welcome and emotional register– welcome the pupils to the group, go over the group rules and talk about how they feel today.
Warm up – This is an unrelated activity to warm the pupils up and break the ice.
Activity – this is where the pupils work on the learning objective.
Relaxation/Mindfulness – Teaches valuable relaxation and mindfulness skills.
Review of the session – pupils talk about their learning experience.
Resources – ready to print and go!
Group rules
Planning for 6 sessions
Certificate on completion
Feelings wheels
5 things you can see visual
I showed respect comic strip
Reach the sky visual
I showed disrespect comic strip
Fill your mind with colour visual
Respect and disrespect cards
Respect and disrespect examples worksheet
Scenario sort
List of characteristics
Passing through visual
Personal characteristic comic strip
Count those breaths visual
Design a poster task
Scenario consequences
Stand like a mountain visual
What I did or said
All the printable resources are included. You will also need a few other things such as colouring pens, pencils, a set of dominoes, and whiteboards and pens.
The lessons cover the following:
Learning objectives
Lesson 1
What is respect?
Lesson 2
What is disrespect?
Lesson 3
I can tell the difference between respect and disrespect
Lesson 4
What is self respect
Lesson 5
What is respect for our environment?
Lesson 6
What is respect for others?
This is ELSA Support’s Twinkle and shine self esteem intervention for young children. It is written for children from approx. 4 to 6 but could be used with 7 year olds too.
The Self-esteem intervention is for a group of 4 children and is led by an ELSA or a teaching assistant. It covers emotions, relaxation, calming down techniques and learning objectives around self-esteem. It runs for approximately 30-40 minutes, weekly for six weeks. There are also tips for areas of provision to continue or reinforce the learning done in the intervention group. There are lots of visuals, circle times and group activities along with lots of expression through drawing.
Children will learn about emotions during each session and will also learn relaxation and calming techniques through the ‘relaxation time’. This knowledge and these skills will help them to become more emotionally literate. The coming together of a group fosters a sense of belonging and contributes towards higher self-esteem. Every opportunity should be taken to promote belonging and friendship.
This Twinkle and shine self esteem intervention follows this structure
Welcome and emotional register– welcome the pupils to the group, go over the circle time rules and talk about how they feel today.
Warm up – This is a song they will sing right through every session to help them Twinkle and shine!
Activity – this is where the pupils work on the learning objective.
Relaxation/Mindfulness – pupils are more ready to go back to class if they are relaxed and calm. This also teaches them valuable coping/relaxation skills.
Areas of provision – these are suggestions to continue learning in class
Review of the session – pupils talk about their learning experience and fill in their star on the building block.
The pack contains the following:
Twinkle and shine planning – six sessions of fully resources planning with suggestions on what to say
Building blocks to self esteem – children will colour one star in at a time until they build their self esteem
Circle time song – Twinkle and shine sung to the tune of ‘Frere Jacque’
Certificate for the end of the sessions
I am special because I am different worksheet
Butterfly visual
My house
Paintpot visual
Family and friends game
Family and friends tree
Turtle shell visual
Things I am good at
Snowman visual
Proud cloud
Superhero pose visual
Grow happy feelings
Floating on a cloud visual
Circle time rules
Feelings wheel
Shout outs
Resources
This pack contains all the printable resources you will need for each lesson. There are other easy to find items needed and each lesson plan has a list of items you will need. These things are simple such as a mirror, and colouring pencils/pens.
This is a body sensations resource pack containing lots of ways to explore body sensations linked to emotion.
Included in this resource pack:
4 different skin coloured body shapes (A3 size) and 1 in black and white, each showing a blank box for writing a feeling word and a scale to scale how big the feeling is.
48 image cards
96 sensation describing word cards
48 parts of the body cards
36 colour cards for describing what colour your emotions are
Condensed A4 mat for discussion about feelings, sensations , sensation words and colours.
A blank sheet for adding any other sensations, body parts, colours that might be needed.
Visual representation of sizes for younger children.
Purpose of the resource
To identify body feelings and sensations.
How do we feel in our bodies when we are anxious, angry, worried, happy, scared etc?
Do we feel tingly, numb, wobbly, trembly, hot, empty and so on?
This resource is a way for children to tell you how they are feeling in their bodies. The image cards can be used for children to place on the body shape where they are feeling this sensation.
The words could be used instead of the images in the same way. They could also be used together.
This resource is set up for A3 printing. Laminate all of the pieces so you can use it over and over for different children. This is suitable for children of all ages.
If laminated the child could also use a dry wipe pen to draw facial expressions associated with the feeling they have. They can mark off on the scale how big their feeling is. There are some cards at the end of this pack with some visual representations of big, medium and small for very young children.
If the child is unsure of body parts spend a little time going through the cards and placing them where they go on the body. You could make this a bit of a game. ‘Where is the scalp?’ The child can put the word where they think the scalp should be. What feelings do you get in your scalp if you are angry? They might pick the fire or pick hot. They might pick prickly or a picture of a brush. There are so many ways to use this resource with children to talk about their feelings.
You could even use it as an interactive display. It is A3 size so you could have the body on the wall with the cards around the body so pupils could pick one of the picture or word cards and place it with a bit of bluetak onto the body where they feel that emotion.
This is such a versatile resource and I think you will use it a lot.
This includes 2 stories, a male version and a female version. The children are worried about going to school and don’t want to separate from their mum. This will help children suffering from School separation anxiety.
Included in the pack:
George doesn’t want to go to school Story PowerPoint (36 slides)
George doesn’t want to go to school Story PDF (36 pages)
Isla doesn’t want to go to school Story PowerPoint (36 slides)
Isla doesn’t want to go to school Story PDF (36 pages)
11 worksheets including – My morning routine, Weird things that happen to my body, A time I felt upset and cried, A time I felt angry, A time I felt scared, Delaying tactics, What if monsters, What if bubbles, A special memory, Fun times at school, My separation plan.
Booklet of questions to ask about the stories.
A pre and post anxiety scale
Strength cards for older pupils. This is a huge set of cards displaying over 100 different strengths and talents. Perfect for work on self esteem. There is also a list of 30 ways on how to use them along with some useful questions on the cards and on the back of the cards. Choose one or two questions to ask the pupil.
Strength cards are an amazing tool for self esteem. You don’t have to use all of the cards but I would suggest you get them all printed, laminated and use a handful you think are relevant to the pupil(s) you are working with.
This is an ELSA Secondary Anger pack of worksheets to help you support pupils who have anger issues. These are all in black and white for easy and cost effective printing. This is suitable for upper KS2, secondary pupils and adults.
We also have another useful worksheet pack for secondary pupils
Included in the elsa secondary anger pack
Anger firework activity (11 sheets) This will help explain what happens when an anger episode is triggered
The fight or flight response information
Body response to anger information
Useful coping strategies information
Thoughts information
Self talk information
Anger iceberg information and worksheet
Anger triggers weekly diary
Anger triggers daily diary
Weekly thought diary for reframing thoughts
Daily thought diary for reframing thoughts
CBT cycle info
CBT cycle worksheet
Challenging negative thinking worksheet
Reflection time
Anger synonyms
You could put these into a pack for your pupils and make workbooks according to their needs.
26 sheets in the pack
This is a worry train express, a way for younger pupils or pupils with an interest in trains to manage their worries.
It consists of a train with two carriages. The train has a window and some emojis that the pupil can stick into the window to represent how worried they are.
One carriage is for the pupil’s worries. They can write or draw on the tickets.
The other carriage has calming strategies. There are six to try and there are tickets for pupils to come up with their own.
There are two stations to visit. The first station is where worries are talked about and decisions made on whether this worry is in their control or not in their control. They can make a plan if it is in their control(there is a sheet available for writing or drawing).
If the worry is not in their control they continue to the next station where they can leave their worry at the station. The emoji can be changed at this point to perhaps a ‘happy face’.
Benefits of the worry train express
It is fun and engaging
Pupils can offload their worries
They can learn some calming strategies
They can learn about control and planning
They can learn to let go of their worries
Pupils will learn facial expressions and some vocabulary around worries
Other uses for this resource
Print the PDF larger and make it up as a wall display, all the pupils in your group could add their worries to the carriage.
Resource from ELSA SUPPORT
Print out the skin tone that you require. This resource has five different skin tones to suit all children. There are also 15 different sets of eyes and mouths and a set of emotions vocabulary flash cards. Laminate all the pieces and keep in a zipped bag for convenience. The aim of this resource is for children to begin to recognise facial expressions and talk about their feelings. It is excellent for children on the autistic spectrum. This resource is also very good for early years settings and can be put into an area of provision, allowing children to experiment and make different faces. Can they match the eyes to the mouth? Can they tell you what the expression is that they have made? Parents would also find this resource helpful for their preschool children.
Questions you could ask – can you make me a ‘angry face’? What would ‘angry’ eyes look like? What would ‘sad’ eyes look like? Can you make me a ‘sad face’? Also use other vocabulary such as ‘miserable, frustrated, terrified, proud’.
There are so many possibilities for working with this resource. The cards could be used as a matching pairs game. Lay out all the cards and ask a child to choose a mouth and eyes that match – name the emotion.
Use the face (laminated) for drawing emotion faces. Put it alongside a mirror so children can make faces themselves.
Use the angry eyes and mouth to discuss anger and how to recognise when they are becoming angry. What makes them angry? What could they do when they are angry?
Pick an emotions flashcard(included with the pack) and make the appropriate face.