This is an idea for an ELSA Christmas advent calendar and would be a fab activity for groups of children or your one to one children. Each child can colour one or two of the booklets. Some of them require faces drawing on first. They can just colour the image or they can colour the image and background. Depends how much time you have. There are 24 little foldable books. The child can colour the front of one of the books and then write or draw something inside.
The pupil needs to understand that what they write or draw could be seen by anyone so they are writing for an audience. What could they write?
The purpose of this advent calendar is some quiet mindful time and of course positivity. This activity is ideal for that last week in November, preparing for the 1st of December.
Ideas for what you could work on:
A Christmas memory
Something you are grateful for
An act of kindness
Positive quotes about Christmas
Self care and ways to look after yourself
Positive characteristics
Relaxing moments
Positive affirmations
A gift to give someone
A joke or something to make you smile
Compliments
Once all the pieces have been coloured you can use the enclosed A3 sheet to stick the numbers on at random and close each book with a bit of bluetak. You can then use it as an advent calendar. Everyone has been involved and pupils are writing things for others to see so they need to think carefully what message they want to convey.
Of course if you want to make it very simple, they could just draw a Christmas picture inside if they want to.
This is an odd socks anti bullying poster I made for anti bullying week. It prints on A3 so is a decent size. If you want it bigger use your Adobe print settings and choose poster. You can then alter the tile scale to make it bigger.
It reminds us all that socks come in all colours and patterns and they are all different and unique.
This is a Christmas compliments cup activity.
Pupils can send a cup to someone special to give them a compliment. You could also use the cup without the poem for pupils to write their own little poem or message. Just delete the text if want to do that. You could also use it to put on the front of a Christmas card. They could also collect compliments using a plain heart. You could make a different message. This would work well for a group circle time activity.
All the text is editable in PowerPoint. Great for our Welsh ELSAs to translate if they want to.
To edit just click on the text and type. This font has been embedded in the file.
Once you have edited the resource, save it and then save it again as a PDF file. You can now print your cups.
There are 7 different Christmas mindful backgrounds and 1 cup that is blank so pupils could decorate themselves. This one could mean that you could use this at any time of the year, not just Christmas. Pupils will enjoy the mindfulness of colouring their cups.
You will receive a PDF file if you just want to use it as it is and a PowerPoint file if you want to change the text.
The poem is my poem and copyright to me so please do not alter or change this in anyway. You can obviously write your own poem or message if you want to edit it.
Benefits of this activity:
Mindfulness and being absorbed in the present moment
Thinking of others
Giving to others
Thinking of nice things to say to others
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 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 an anger scale poster or visual for display or for showing pupils who struggle with anger. It could also be put up in classrooms or work areas.
This is a set of Scared Synonym Posters which are differentiated according to age. These all print as A3 posters.
There is one for early years, kS1 and KS2 upwards.
It is so helpful for pupils to learn vocabulary around feeling words. Being able say exactly how you feel with accuracy (Emotional granularity) can really help reduce the emotion felt.
This one is about being scared.
These would be great in your area, and a brilliant way for you to try and encourage your pupil to be more specific when they say ‘I feel scared’ You can help them to explore other words by using these posters.
This is a Halloween Pumpkin Scary expressions worksheet to use.
This is fab for teaching about the emotion of fear. What sort of expressions do you make when you are scared about something? Ask the pupil to draw as many as they can on the pumpkins. Black and white worksheet included too!
This is a Halloween Pumpkin Scary words worksheet to use on the run up to Halloween. It is a great way to teach pupils about the synonyms for fear. There are so many words they can use and examples are given.
They can fill the pumpkin with words. They could use lots of colours perhaps in pumpkin colours to write the words to make it more interesting. Take every opportunity to discuss each word, what it means and when they might have felt like that.
Included in the Thankful Tree pack is *Giant tree with sky background *72 leaves with vocabulary *Banner *Black and white leaves for writing *Leaves in a variety of shapes and colours for display.
The tree is in PDF format and if you use Adobe to open it, then you can choose any size you like and piece together the pieces. I have included one in the Thankful Tree pack that is ready to print on A4 pieces.
This will promote a positive attitude and help increase happiness. Gratefulness or thankfulness is a fabulous habit to get into and helps to change that mindset.
These emotion apples can be used for an apple tree. Great for the Autumn term.
They all print on A4 paper ready for you to cut out and add to your tree. There are also a variety of coloured leaves to add to your tree and a black and white blank apple for pupils to colour and draw their own emotion if you want to make this an emotional register. They can draw the face on the apple and write the emotion on the leaf. Tree is not included.
Paint a simple tree shape on your display board or use brown paper to cut one out. Better still ask the pupils to help you paint or make it.
Included in the Apple Emotions Pack:
16 Red apples with emotions – happy, sad, angry, scared, surprised, disgusted, worried, confused, shy, calm, tired, bored, proud, frustrated, excited, and upset
A variety of coloured leaves for autumn
Blank apple for drawing an emotion face and writing the emotion
19 sheets in the pack
This is a growth mindset sorting activity and is suitable for all pupils.
Which statements are indicative of a growth mindset and which ones are a fixed mindset. Help your pupils learn with this colourful and engaging activity.
Included in the pack:
Growth Mindset pocket
Fixed Mindset pocket
Sorting sheet
64 statements – 32 for fixed mindset and 32 for growth mindset
A set of blank cards so pupils can write their own
Character sheets for sorting without the pockets if you are wanting to do a quick activity
All the above in black and white
The pockets without clipart for older pupils
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 self-esteem leaflet for parents has common sense advice to help them support their children at home. The leaflet is trifold so has six sides to them. They are to be printed duplex and instructions are given within the resource on how to do this using Adobe settings. The resource comes with a PDF to print where you can handwrite your contact details. It also has a file where you can edit the contact details in PowerPoint.
The margins do need to be cut off all the sides so the leaflet folds properly.
This leaflet covers ‘What is self-esteem?’ Strengths, talents and affirmations, advice on being specific with praise, a ‘CAN DO’ can activity, and simple goal setting.
This is an anxiety scale that would be great displayed in your area or used as a talking point with your pupils.
There is a scale with suggested vocabulary and some questions they can ask themselves to help cope with those feelings.
This is a set of emotional development ELSA Session Plans for pupils to learn about new Emotional vocabulary. These plans are useful for KS2 upwards. They could possibly used for Year 2 with extra support.
Included in the pack is a 18 page file with 5 sessions, some of them can be repeated with different emotions. All the supporting paper resources are included too.
The sessions are split into:
Learning objective
What you need
Activity
Challenge and further work
I think these plans will be useful for new ELSAs and those who just don’t have time allocated for planning.
Pupils being able to identify and say how they are feeling can massively reduce the emotion they are feeling.
Pupils emotional development is key to good Emotional literacy.
This is a worry worm booklet and poster. Lots of children have worry worms. They are usually crocheted or knitted. Often there is a little poem attached. They are to help pupils let go of their worries. The pupil can talk to their worm and tell it all about their worries. The idea being that the worry worm will hold onto it,so the pupil doesn’t have to. They can let it go. To decide on which worries should be told to the worm it is helpful to look at the Worry tree
My idea for this resource was to have somewhere to put those worries. The worry worm booklet is useful for them to write those worries down. Once they have written or drawn their worry they can let it go. The types of worries that the pupil should be encouraged to write down are those worries not in their control. This might be a ‘What if?’ type worry.
There are some handy reminders each using ‘worry’ as a mnemonic.
Included in the pack:
A3 Poster in colour
Booklet in colour
Booklet in black and white
‘I am worried about ‘page with lines for writing
‘I am worried about’ page blank for drawing
This is a shyness resource pack requested by one of you lovely ELSAs. It is aimed at KS2 upwards.
This resource pack is to help children who want to be more confident and brave. They want to overcome their shyness because they are perhaps missing out on things in life. Being braver and less socially awkward may help them have more friends, face their fears and open up new opportunities.
There are a whole range of emotions that can come from being shy such as nervousness, anxiety, fear, panic, and embarrassment. Children need to be able to deal with these emotions with coping strategies.
Included in the pack:
One of our TAB booklets in colour and black and white
3 worksheets in colour and black and white
Learning objectives you could use for this pack:
To understand what being shy means
To identify body signs for feeling shy
To understand that other emotions might be triggered by being shy
To set a small achievable target for overcoming being shy
To be able to scale a situation on the shyness scale
To identify thoughts linked to shyness and reframe them
To identify and use coping strategies for shyness
To understand feelings after overcoming shyness
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.