This is a pack of ways for pupils to feedback on how their sessions went. Brilliant to show evidence of impact for any impending OFSTED visits. These will also help you inform future planning and find out what your pupil has learnt.
It is so important to assess your work constantly to ensure you are doing the absolute best for your pupils.
Included in the pack
8 different ways to feedback from worksheets, to speech bubbles to rolling a die. Girl version and boy version available where relevant.
Jigsaw Resource Pack
Includes:
5 banners
an example lesson plan
10 plain coloured jigsaw pieces
10 coloured jigsaw pieces with vocabulary
15 jigsaw templates and suggestions list on how to use them
This is a huge pack of resources for children to learn how to rid themselves of negative thoughts through mindfulness type exercises. There are 3 zipped files included in the download due to the size of the resource.
The children are asked to think about an animal, then to stop thinking about the animal. This will demonstrate how it is difficult to stop thinking about something just by telling yourself not to think about it. They are then asked to do an exercise to demonstrate how that will rid them of the animal. If the animal comes back they do the exercise again.
There are:
24 A5 cards to print
24 Powerpoint shows for each exercise
24 PDFs of the Powerpoint shows
Supporting worksheets – 3 main sheets but offered with colour, black and white, with and without lines.
This journal will address many areas of a pupils’ well-being. It is suitable for KS2 upwards and even useful for adults! The journal is a way for pupils to find the positives in their life and to discover mindfulness and relaxation.
Here are some of the areas addressed:
Positivity
Emotions
Self-esteem
Focus
Target setting
Mindfulness
Relaxation
Thinking skills
Affirmations
Scaling emotions
Worries
Thoughts and feelings
Emotion tracking
Gratitude/thankfulness
Kindness
Creativity
Reflecting
Planning
Included in the pack:
One weeks worth of journal – each day has 2 pages of things to fill in
Independent journal sheet should pupils want to continue
Worry garage
Positives Jar
2 emotion trackers – dream catcher and mosaic
End of week assessment
Bullet journal sheet for creating
Weekly review
8 front covers to choose from
Doodles, drawings and scribbles sheet
How to use the journal with lots of ideas for using in ELSA Sessions with a pupil – would also be useful to teachers, teaching assistants, learning mentors and counsellors.
Express yourself Art Doodling is a series of prompts for drawing. Children get so much from drawing. It is a way of self expression and self exploration. Children relax when drawing and are much more open to talking about their feelings.
This booklet can be printed as A4 and stapled together or as A3 to give children more room for drawing. You could also just dip into the sheets and print the one you want to use. You could use the same sheet for the whole group or whole class of children. The booklet has purposely been created in black and white so as not to distract from the child’s drawings and of course to save printing costs.
There are 40 activities in the booklet covering so many aspects of emotional literacy.
I am sure children will get a lot out of the booklet and it will give you valuable information about their thoughts and feelings. It can also be used as a ready made lesson plan for one to one work or group work.
Please ensure you use ADOBE to open PDFs because this will give you great options for printing.
Create a display in a natural design with this Natural resilience display pack. Natural displays are calming for some pupils. Sometimes bright colours can overstimulate a child.
Included in the pack: *80 vocabulary words *Banner *A-Z bunting *writing and drawing paper
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?
This is our Coping skills toolkit for emotional regulation. Perfect for ELSA Support. There is a handy little pouch and lots of resources that will help pupils with their emotional regulation.
Each pupil could be given one of these. Go through the cards and decide which emojis to put in and which calming cards to put in. Each pupil could have their own bespoke toolkit.
Included in the coping skills toolkit
24 Emoji face cards
33 Coping, calming and mindfulness cards
Worry tree card
Circle of control card
Affirmations card
Anger feeling words and physical sensations card
Sadness feeling words and physical sensations card
Anxiety feeling words and physical sensations card
Scared feeling words and physical sensations words
Self care for wellbeing card
All these resources are in one handy file so you can print what you need.
This EBSA workbook School difficulties has been created with valuable help from the members of the ELSA Support Facebook Group who provided some of the difficulties their pupils face. It relies on real life situations that pupils have found difficult about coming to school. ELSAs are often on the front line trying to help pupils back into school and to work on their difficulties.
The booklet is aimed from Year 3 to Year 6 but could also be used with Year 2 with support.
We also have EBSA workbook school thoughts and feelings and EBSA Workbook Coping with school worries on the website.
EBSA is Emotionally based school avoidance. Pupils who struggle to come to school or are non attenders. This might have an emotional cause or a mental health cause.
The activity consists of a sorting board, cards with suggestions, cards for pupils to write their own, an exploration board, a feelings board with scales and changes and what they want to happen to make things feel ok.
This activity will help pupils to identify what is bothering them at school and how to reduce that feeling by changing the situation.
Start by printing out the base board and cutting up the cards. Print out a blank sheet so the pupil can add their own if they want to. Help the pupil sort the cards between things that are ok, things they are unsure of and things that are not ok.
Once you have done that choose one of the things that are not ok and look at it further.
Help the pupil break it down to see if you can find out what the actual issue is.
Example might be ‘seating plan’ that is not ok.
What is it about the seating plan that is not ok? Is it that they are sitting next to someone they don’t like? Perhaps they can’t hear the teacher? Perhaps they are uncomfortable and there might be a draft or a bright light bothering them. They might prefer to be sitting with a friend. Perhaps someone copies off them or talks to them and they don’t like that. Try and help the pupil to break down the difficulty.
Once they have the root cause of their difficulty, help them to identify how it makes them feel. Can they put a name to that feeling? How big is that feeling?
There is a sheet for pupil voice to say what changes need to happen for them to be ok. They can write it or you can write it for them and they can tell you what needs to change. There is also a daily sheet for pupils to write down anything that they think of or that crops up for them.
There are also some additional supporting resources included in the pack
This is the first workbook in the EBSA Workbook Range.
This car emotions pack will appeal to younger children. It covers the basic six emotions of:
happy
sad
angry
scared
surprised
disgust
There are a huge bundle of resources in this pack. There are:
6 Full page emotion posters
Emotion cards with and without the words
Dominoes with and without the words
Emotion spinners with the emotion cars with and without words
Emotion spinners with questions on each emotion
Emotion fans with and without words
An emotion game with and without words
Park your emotion with and without words
Scale your emotion with and without words
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.
The word affirm means to ‘state something that is true’. Affirmation cards have simple but positive messages that help to develop a person’s sense of self. When used regularly it is hoped that the positive message will be absorbed and a person will become more positive in their outlook in life. They will really begin to believe the statement that they are working on. The message needs to be realistic and very simple.
Although I have called these ‘ADULT’ they really are for anyone. My other cards have characters on them and these are character free.
All these cards begin with the words ‘I am’ and are very simple but achievable statements for all.
Included in the pack:
25 Affirmation cards – 4 to an A4 page
25 Affirmation cards – 2 to an A4 page
25 Affirmation cards – 1 to an A4 page
Blank Affirmation cards – 4 to an A4 page
Tips booklet
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.
This is our Transition Mixed Feelings pack.
Transitioning to a new school, class, or group brings a mix of excitement, anxiety, and sadness. Excitement stems from the prospect of new beginnings, learning opportunities, and potential friendships. The idea of a fresh start can be exhilarating.
Anxiety, however, often accompanies this excitement. The fear of the unknown, concerns about fitting in, and pressures to perform academically and socially can be daunting.
Sadness is another common feeling, arising from leaving behind familiar faces, routines, and environments. The sense of loss and nostalgia for past experiences can be emotionally challenging. Missing old friends and known comforts adds to the difficulty of the transition.
To manage these mixed feelings, it’s good to recognise them. This resource will help your pupils do just that. It’s important to acknowledge and validate all emotions.
The transition mixed feelings pack has a visual ‘face’ version and a ‘word’ version so you can adapt to the capabilities of the pupil. Despite the challenges, with time and support, pupils can navigate these emotions and successfully adapt to their new environments. This activity is fun and engaging. Pupils will enjoy cutting out and sticking their emotions onto the jar.
This is a set of 6 mats for using with playdough and emotions and feelings. Although my thoughts were that these would be fab for younger children, I am sure older children would enjoy using them too. Lots of open ended fun where children can be creative and think about colours.