Strength cards are a brilliant way of raising self-esteem in children. Please see below for lots of ideas on how to use them. There are lots of ways of using them to help boost a child’s self esteem. They help children to name and recognise their inner strengths. Great for the child who is shy or doesn’t want to speak out in front of others. Lay all the strength cards out and ask the child to pick five strengths that represent them. In a group situation, ask one child to sit in the centre of the circle and the rest of the children have to pick five strengths that represent that child. In a group situation, give each child a white board and pen and go through the strength cards. The children can write five on their whiteboards. Pick one of your strength cards and decide how you are going to use that strength – today, tomorrow, next week, next year? Pick one of the strengths that you want to be. For example if you decide you want to be a good team player. How can you achieve that? Make a plan. Pick someone you admire, it might be a footballer, a singer, a film star, a family member or a friend, what strengths do they have? Put the cards face down, ask a child to pick one. Discuss the card. Does he/she know anyone with that strength? Do they have that strength? Would they want that strength? Ask the child to design their own strength card. What image would it have? What would the strength be? Use the strength cards as affirmations. Use the five cards the child has chosen and get them to say ‘I am strong, I am thoughtful, I am wise, I am musical, I am kind’. Put them in a little box and the child must look at them daily and repeat the affirmations. Pick one strength card such as ‘affectionate���. Who do they know who is Affectionate? Discuss. This could also be a group discussion.

Included in the pack: Assessment sheets Emotion fans Circle-time rules Relaxation booklet Planning Booklet Sentence stems Heart worksheet Kindness checklist activity Growing happy feelings activity Rainbow of Strengths Strength cards Wishing wall Puzzle piece

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.

There is a poster and a worksheet for children to come up with their own mindfulness and relaxation ideas.

These Flipbooks are brilliant for working with children. Each flipbook concentrates on different areas. Included in the pack 18 emotion books which use our senses to describe each emotion An ‘About me’ book 3 books dealing with negative feelings such as anger, anxiety and sadness A book dealing with ‘Restorative Practice’ A book on increasing happiness 24 flipbooks all together.

There are 21 different emotions in the pack. One set with ‘I feel’ and just the face and another set with ‘I feel’, the face and a suggested emotion/feeling.

Mindfulness aims to reduce unpleasant emotions and feelings, help you feel relaxed, and allow space between you and your thoughts; giving you the opportunity to react more calmly. Mindfulness is simply allowing yourself to be in the present moment. This pack of resources is perfect for mindful time, with a bonus of creating something unique and beautiful (perfect for decorating a Christmas Card). This will really help self-esteem too. It FEELS amazing to create something unique. Not only is it perfect for ELSA sessions but also for whole classes especially around Christmas time when children need a little bit of calm time. Included in the pack are *10 templates *Pattern sheet and practice sheet *Instructions

This is a friendship display to support any social skills work you may be doing. It focuses on vocabulary around friendship. Pupils will learn about the positive qualities of a friend. The display is bright and colourful and will enhance your ELSA area or classroom. Included in the pack are: *32 Friendship quality display words *A frog poster *A banner that can be printed large using Adobe print settings and then pieced together *some bubbles to cut out to decorate your display * A cauldron which can be printed on A3 or larger *writing paper for the pupils with and without lines, with and without the frog clipart.

This resource is a fun way of working with emotions. Each emoji represents a letter of the alphabet and pupils need to break the code and work out what all the words are. The words in this pack are all emotion/feeling words. Their are 16 base emotions/feelings with synonyms of that emotion or feelings. This is perfect for year 6s who are returning to school in June. Also great for KS2 children who are still at home. The puzzles are enjoyable to do. Pupils will feel a sense of achievement breaking the codes which will help raise self esteem. Getting involved with puzzles is great for relaxation and mindfulness. You can work on synonyms of emotions by using these puzzles. Pupils will learn new vocabulary for expressing their feelings. Brilliant for home learning. The pack contains: 16 code breaker sheets The alphabetic code A sheet for making their own code A sheet for making their own messages Answer sheets

This is a set of Emotion Dominoes for working on facial recognition, labeling emotions and general chat about emotions. You can use them as a traditional domino game or just match them as an activity. There are 90 dominoes covering 12 different emotions/feelings/conditions.

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.

There are 48 Friends cards in this pack. Each showing a positive aspect of friendship. These are great for reading through with older pupils to discuss and work on. They print 8 to an A4 page. Help your pupils to make more friends by using these bright and colourful cards often.

This wellbeing craft group can be used as a whole intervention at lunchtime clubs, after school clubs or as part of your ELSA work. The sessions are all stand alone so could be dipped into as part of your sessions. You could use them for the first session with a child to help them feel calm and relaxed with you. Making crafts is very satisfying and can help with mindfulness, low mood and self esteem. There are lots of opportunities for discussion and children will often open up when crafting. There are 6 sessions in the pack with planning, templates, emotion wheel and mindful colouring for early finishers. 67 Sheets in total. Sessions are for approximately 30 minutes and include an emotion check in, planning for six sessions which includes a mindfulness/calming activity, mandalas for mindful colouring – useful for early finishers and a huge template pack which includes several variations of each craft, black and white versions, information, and instructions. Wellbeing craft group activities: Sleepy stars which is about getting a good night’s sleep Kandinsky tree which is about colour and emotions Relaxing jellyfish which addresses relaxation and contains affirmations for the word relax. Worry Monsters which looks at worries Friendship wreath which looks at qualities of friendship Happy sunshine which is all about things that make them feel happy

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

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.

Activities consist of: Creating a superpower to help people Creating a superhero name Designing your superhero How it makes you feel to use your superpowers to help someone Comparing your favourite superhero to yourself – same and different The Superhero emotion characters have all been drawn by myself.

he crafts are very simple. It is the process that is important. Children relax when they are working on a craft and to be honest I do not know of a child who does not enjoy crafts especially when it is with someone who is interested in them and interested in what they say. They will open up to you and talk freely whilst enjoying themselves. These activities are also perfect for an ELSA or Teaching assistant who has to do a one off session with a child or who has to work reactively to a situation. When children succeed in an activity then their self efficacy increases. They begin to believe in themselves. Along with your encouragement and praise they will begin to have a ‘can do’ attitude. It takes time but if anyone ever says to you that what you are doing is just ‘crafting and having fun’ WHAT are they learning? You can tell them. The resource includes: Card crafts (20 activities) Templates (13 templates or resources) Front cover, contents sheet

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

The teen affirmation workbook begins by offering a clear explanation of affirmations and their significance. It is vital for young minds to grasp the concept of positive self-talk and how it can shape their perceptions and attitudes. The workbook helps pupils to craft personalised affirmations that resonate with their unique experiences and aspirations. Teens learn to transform negative thoughts into affirmations that inspire confidence and resilience. Pupils will reflect on any negativity in their lives through self reflection and learn to flip these into positive affirmations. Pupils are encouraged to use their affirmations daily for 2 weeks and monitor their feelings over this time. They are then encouraged to reflect on any changes that have been observed over that 2 week period. What’s included in the teen affirmation workbook? Affirmations are… (what they are) Affirmations can… (how they can benefit you) Self reflection…(what are the negatives?) Turning the negatives…(How to flip those negatives into a positive statement) Your turn…(Practising how to flip the negatives) Creating affirmations (advice on how to write one) Example affirmations Creating your own affirmations Daily affirmation practice Remember… (the importance of daily practice) Keeping track…(A table for helping monitor feelings and any positive changes) Reflection…(How have things changed over two weeks – question prompts)