The feel good game – is a game about self-esteem. The game will promote discussion on positive aspects of the child’s life and will use affirmations and character traits to reinforce self-esteem.
The game could be played on a one to one basis or a group basis. My suggestion is no more than four children.
To make the game
Photocopy or print the game board onto A3 paper then laminate
Print all the cards, laminate and cut into separate cards
Print the ‘I am board’ and laminate, print 4 of each so that you have enough for girls or boys.
The game consists of:
Affirmation cards
Character trait cards
‘I am’ boards
A game board
You will also need counters, dry wipe pens and a die to play.
How to play
Choose the person to go first by each throwing the die and the highest number thrown goes first. Go clockwise from that person.
The first person throws the die and moves their counter that number of spaces.
They must answer the question they land on, however, if they land on affirmation then they must read this out to the rest of the group. Ask the child if they agree with the statement. They may or may not. If they land on a ‘character trait’ they must read it out and explain what it means. If they cannot explain it then ask if anyone else can help? If they think they have this character trait they can write it on their ‘I am board’. The aim is for each child to have 5 character traits on their board at the end of the game. Continue going round the board until each child has their five character traits.
There isn’t a winner as such with this game as the aim is for the children to learn about their positive traits When they have all filled their ‘I am’ board then they are all winners!
You can photocopy each ‘I am board’ before erasing the writing for the next game.
Name – child writes their name in a colourful way – they could write in bubble writing or decorate it anyway they wish. Why do they like their name? How did they get their name? Do they know of anyone they admire with the same name? Do they have a nickname?
Picture– either take a photo of the child to stick here or ask them to draw themselves. What do they like about their body? Is there anything they don’t like? What amazing things can they do with their bodies? How do they take care of their bodies? Talk about exercise, eating, drinking, washing, going to doctors if ill etc. What about their minds? How do they keep themselves happy? Content? Relaxed etc.?
Front cover title – What is self esteem? Do they know? Have a discussion about what having a healthy self esteem is. Make sure they are aware that the things you are going to be working on will help their self esteem.
Family pocket and hearts – think about their family members and write one on each heart shape. Reinforce that sense of belonging to the child. They belong to their family. They are part of a family. That family maybe an adopted family but they still BELONG. Keep all the family members safe in the little pocket.
‘I can’ can – think about all the things the child ‘CAN’ do. Focus on the positive with this activity. What can they do? Think about their school work, their homes, their friends, and anything at all that they can do. It could be the tiniest thing but if they can do it then it is written on the little cards and put into the ‘I can’ can. This can be added to over the time you are working with the child. Tell the teacher to help the child realise what they ‘CAN’ do. Reinforce this at all times.
Thank you for – Being grateful and thankful can really boost happiness and self esteem so this activity is about thinking of all the things the child is thankful for. Each day there will be something, no matter how small, Are they thankful for family? friends? that they are a fast runner? that they have a lovely home? that they get food everyday? that they are in good health? Focus on being thankful at all times. Write all these things on the little strips and pop into the pocket. Keep adding to this over your sessions.
Treasure chest – This has several sheets which fold up like a little booklet. The child can decorate their face at the top and you can choose which one to do – there is ‘Things I am proud of’, ‘Things I have achieved’, ‘Things I like about me’, ‘Things I tried hard to do’. You could put anything in the treasure chest that is special and is something to keep safe.
Wheel – you could use this with strength cards Look through the strength cards together and ask the child to pick 8 things they are good at. 8 strengths. Obviously they may come up with ones that are not in the pack and that is fine. Write one strength on each section of the wheel. Glue the bottom section to the top of the lapbook and
222 Emotion word cards and 4 banners make up this resource. Fantastic for display or for working with children with social and emotional problems.
Use the cards:
Find an emotion word you don’t know the meaning of and find out!
Pick a positive emotion and use it in a sentence.
Pick a negative emotion and use it in a sentence.
Think about your day and pick out all the emotions you have felt in that day.
Make a collage of angry words.
Make a collage of happy words.
Make a collage of scared 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.
Pick a card and draw a picture of a time when you felt like that.
Pick a card and find all the synonyms of that word.
Pick a card and draw 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.
There are so many things you can do with these cards
My Worries and Fears Lapbook can be built with a child, combining lessons and creativity and craft. Each component can be a lesson or part of a lesson. It is something for the child to take away at the end of your sessions. You could easily fill 4 to 6 lessons with what is in this lapbook. There are two versions, one in black and white so the child can colour the lettering etc and one in colour where they can just cut and stick. By creating this you are helping the child have some tools for coping.
All you need is an A3 piece of card, card and paper for printing, a glue stick, laminating pouches and a drywipe pen.
My Worries and Fears Lapbook is for the everyday worries that children have. If a children is very anxious then this needs a referral to a professional.
My Worries and Fears Lapbook consists of:
Front cover title in black and white and in colour
Front cover name and drawing of themselves labels
Tell your worry to a worry doll pocket and small printable worry dolls (black and white and colour). A worry doll is a Guatemalan tradition where children tell their worries to their doll and put their dolls under their pillow at night. The dolls take away their worries.
My Worries (bag) pocket in colour and black and white.
My Worries cards to slot on the pocket. Cards consist of different sized monsters (metaphor for worries) so that the child can scale their worry. They can write on the back of the worry card. There is also a drawing prompt for the child to draw their own worry monster (or anything else that they could use as a metaphor for a worry).
Let’s talk about coping strategies – There are 24 prompt cards for discussing worries and coping strategies.
Let’s look inside your head – This is a little booklet with a happy face and a happy brain, a worried face and a worried brain. Children fill in things that make them happy in their happy brain and things that make them worry in their worry brain. Remind children often of the things in their happy brain.
My thoughts and how can I change them pocket and cards- children write down their thoughts when they feel worried. How can that thought be changed. Prompts discussion on thinking more positive thoughts.
My body sheet – where does the child feel their worries and fears? eg. tummy ache, fast heartbeat, hot and bothered, fast breathing etc.
Back cover based on the Worry Tree by Butler and Hope 2007. Laminate this sheet so the child can reuse to work through their worries.
This resource is helpful for building a sense of identity and self esteem.
Instructions for making up the resource are included in the downloadable pack.
Teach children about the six basic emotions with these booklets and games. Angry, sad, happy, scared, disgust and surprise.
Can be used on a one to one basis, with a group or even a whole class. Use the sheets as worksheets or lessons for every child.
Great for ELSA intervention or for Learning mentors or Teaching assistants.
Also a set of superhero fans thrown in to help with emotional regulation.
These emotion work cards will help children to learn more about their emotions. They will help them learn new vocabulary and to really use and think about their emotions. Learning about emotions is incredibly important for all children and this resource is perfect for that.
This is a set of 30 cards, 2 on each page. Each card has a task to do related to emotion cards. A set of emotion cards has been included with this resource but the cards which match this resource is available in my TES store.
The cards can be printed on A4 or A3 and laminated. Children can use dry wipe pens to write or draw. You can then photocopy what they have done to keep it or you can just print them as worksheets.
Stick the label onto a container or box. Pop the cookies into the container and invite children to pick a cookie and answer the question.
This resource will help raise children's self-esteem. Could be used whole class, groups or individually.
This game consists of:
A game board
Star cards
Bingo boards
Social skills questions (3 questions on 18 cards, 54 questions altogether)
Friendship questions (3 questions on 18 cards, 54 questions altogether)
Self-esteem questions (3 questions on 18 cards, 54 questions altogether)
Emotions questions (3 questions on 18 cards, 54 questions altogether)
Instructions
You will need a die and a counter for each child.
The game can be played with a group of children or you can just use the cards for working one to one with a child. You could also use the cards during whole class circle time activities.
The game will promote the following skills:
Turn taking
Sharing
Speaking
Listening
Friendship skills
Social Skills
Emotional awareness
Self-esteem
Resilience
Fairness
Co-operation
Peer learning
Here you have a PowerPoint file of editable names. You can click on the name and change it. It will go to two lines if you want to add a surname too. The box is set to stay the same but your writing will be smaller or bigger depending on how many letters you put in.
There are 15 hand drawn backgrounds included in this pack all great for mindful colouring. Some are more complex than others so choose one that you think the pupil will like. The font is embedded into the file.
Once you have chosen from the 15 backgrounds, click on the name and change it.
Click ‘Save as’ and save the PowerPoint first.
Click ‘Save as’ again and choose PDF from the drop down list.
You can then print that page from your PDF.
You can duplicate one design if you want to by right clicking on the slide on the left hand side of your screen and choosing duplicate.
This pack is great for an opening session or just to catch up with the child after the long holiday. They can take it away with them and finish it at home if they want to.
This self esteem booster wheel will help children to reflect on their Strengths, talents and personal characteristics. There are so many things they are good at. A star stands out and shines brightly in the dark sky so thought I would use this for the centre of the wheel. There are two coloured versions and a black and white version. Pupils of any age can draw or write their strengths, talents or personal characteristics.
This is a HUGE ELSA Secondary worksheet bundle with 68 worksheets that will be helpful for secondary pupils. It will also be good for upper KS2 or for those more mature pupils. It will also be helpful for adults too.
All the worksheets are black and white for easy and cost effective printing. There is minimal clipart.
Areas covered are:
Self-esteem
Emotions
Wellbeing
Anxiety
They can be used individually with pupils, with groups of pupils and whole classes of pupils. Build your lesson around a worksheet.
You could make up a workbook for each child you are working with to help with their specific problems by carefully choosing worksheets that would help them.
This is a pupil anger trifold leaflet with information on the emotion of anger.
An ELSA contacted me asking if I had any leaflets for pupils so I created this. If you like this and think it would be useful do let me know and I will look at creating leaflets for other emotions.
The leaflet takes the pupil through what anger is, triggers, body feelings, labelling the feeling, scaling, and coping skills. I would suggest you give this leaflet out at the end of your sessions on anger or if you are just talking through anger with a pupil you go through the leaflet and explain everything in more detail with them.
You will find instructions for printing and folding the pupil anger trifold leaflet within the download. You can add your contact details to the leaflet by typing in the BLUE box. The font is set to the same as the leaflet and the text auto adjusts so you can write a bit more than just your name. You might want to write where the pupil can find you. The blue box does not show when you print.
These separation cards are perfect for touching base with your ELSA children. Once an intervention is finished it is important to keep contact with your children. Great relationships occur during ELSA interventions.
Some children do build a strong bond with the adult that they work with and these little cards will ensure that they know they are still being thought about and are not forgotten.
Of course these were created for the ELSA/Child relationship. These would also work well for Teacher/Child, TA/Child, Learning Mentor/Child or anyone who works either on a one to one basis or small group basis with children. Parent’s may even find them useful to pop in their child’s lunch box for example, or put one under their pillow to remind them about how amazing they are.
There are 22 different cards altogether
These cards can be printed on A4 card and there are 4 to each A4 sheet. Have a stack of them printed and ready to give out to your children. There is a mixture of ‘thinking of you’ type cards, ‘inspirational cards’ and even Birthday, Christmas cards.
Positive self-talk display pack for anxiety
Help children to change their thoughts when they feel anxious by displaying these thought bubbles in your classroom or area.
Print the banner as a poster in Adobe, you can choose how many sheets to print it over using the settings.
What is included?
How to change ‘Self-talk’ list
17 thought bubble suggestions
Positive ‘self-talk’ list
Positive ‘self-talk’ worksheet
‘When I feel anxious I can say’ banner
Emotions early years – Teaching children about emotions is the most fundamental thing you can do to ensure children become emotionally literate and will help them with that all important emotional regulation. This ‘EMOTIONS’ resource will help to do just that. The main part of the resource is a powerpoint show where you can introduce each emotion. This gives lots of opportunity to work on one emotion at a time and promotes lots of discussion.
This resource is aimed at early years but there are children that you may feel would benefit from this in KS1.
Children are learning to:
Recognise the emotion
Understand what it means
Label the emotion
Express the emotion
This resource consists of:
A powerpoint show with 20 emotions and an emotional register
A PDF of the show
20 ‘girl’ emotion sheets in black and white for colouring
20 ‘boy’ emotion sheets in black and white for colouring
20 ‘girl’ emotion fans
20 ‘boy’ emotion fans
his activity will help teach children speaking and listening skills, so important for good social skills.
There is a Santa face, a plate template and 48 cookies with a range of Christmas items and also some emotion faces.
Cut out Santa’s mouth and stick the sheet to a box – I used an old Amazon packaging box but anything A4 sized will do. Cut out a selection of cookies and place them on the ‘Cookie plate’
This activity is fun for one to one working but two children could also use it together. You can start easy by saying ‘Feed Santa a yellow cookie’. ‘Feed Santa a pink cookie’. ‘Feed Santa a cookie with a present on it’, ‘Feed Santa a cookie with a bell on it’. Then move onto more accurate descriptions. ‘Feed Santa a yellow cookie with a Christmas tree on it’, ‘Feed Santa a pink cookie with a bow on it’. It could get even trickier with requests such as ‘Feed Santa a pink cookie with red lights on it’. There are also some ‘emotion cookies’ for work on emotions and listening skills. ‘Feed Santa a cookie with a happy face’, ‘Feed Santa a cookie with a worried face’.Children need to listen really well and follow the instructions.Children can also take turns to describe which cookie they want another child or you to feed to Santa.
This game looks at 16 different emotions including the basics of of happy, sad, angry, scared, surprised and disgusted. It is ideal for children from about 5 years old. My recommendation is that it is played with one or two children due to the space needed. Children take it in turns to throw a die and move that number of spaces on the base board. They will either land on a head, tummy or bottom. They take one of those cards and name the emotion. If it is a head they are seeing the facial expression. If it is a tummy they are seeing what someone might say who is feeling that emotion and if it is a bottom they are seeing the emotion word. The idea of the game is to build a complete monster.
The resource consists of:
a game board
42 scenario cards
8 worksheets
Explanation cards on being ‘RUDE’, ‘MEAN’ and ‘BULLYING’.
So many children and parents use the term ‘bullying’ incorrectly. This resource aims to teach the difference between being rude, mean or actual bullying.
Being rude is doing something unintentionally and doing it once. Being mean is doing something intentionally and doing it once or twice. Being a bully is doing something intentionally and doing it over and over again even when told to stop.
The scenario cards are a mixture of rude, mean and bullying situations. The cards can be used with the game board or with the worksheets. They will prompt lots of discussion on what bullying really means.
Children will explore intentional or unintentional behaviour, controlling behaviour, the victims feelings, and remorse or sorrow for the behaviour.
There is also a poster added as a free extra.
This workbook can be made up to suit the child. Work on families can be very useful as it helps children to understand their identity and helping them to see the support network around them.
I have added sheets for different family members such as:
mum
dad
stepmum
stepdad
grandma
grandad
auntie
uncle
pet
sister
brother
stepsister
stepbrother
There are 23 sheets altogether in the pack.
If you require any more family members then please comment below and I can add them to the pack.