Page 20 - 101 SEL Activities
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have them link it to one of their 5 senses e.g. something you can smell, etc. Do a different category every time (fruit, food, names, etc.).
With younger kids have them come up with a word for each letter of the alphabet, or take turns switching off.
Do this without the ABC cards if you don’t have it handy. This helps teach mindfulness and clears their head. Simply run through the alphabet verbally.
Rock Paper Scissors (4+)
Time: 2-5minutes
Purpose: Grounding technique to help your child learn to better regulate their emotions.
They have to be paying attention to play this game. Anything that gets your child to focus on one thing at a time helps with regulating their emotions.
Instructions: You can set the pace in the beginning with the 1, 2, 3 countdown. Go slow, go fast—it doesn’t matter as long as your child is listening and waits until you say, “go.” Basic rules: Paper beats rock; rock beats scissor and scissor beats paper.
Thumb wars is another good hand gameJ Pencil/ Jump/ Jumping Jack (4+)
Time: 2-7minutes
Purpose: To regulate emotions, tolerate mistakes and develop grit in a nonthreatening way. This helps them learn to listen AND react. It also helps with developing a stronger connection as the two of you are interacting and doing nothing else. They have to manage their sillies (or just go with the silliesJ) in order to be successful.
Instructions: Identify three actions, i.e. stand like a pencil, jump and jumping jack. Call out the action and your child has to perform it. Go as fast or slow as you would like and have fun with it. Take turns being the instructor and the instructed.
Red light, Green light is a similar game (red = stop, yellow = slow & green = go).
Feelings Cards (5+)
Time: Variesfrom2-10minutes.
Purpose: This helps increase their ability to regulate emotions as it also increases their emotional vocabulary. Children learn that they can feel more than one feeling at a time. It works to develop empathy and strengthens connections to others.
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