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2026 February School Counseling Newsletter

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2026 January School Counseling Newsletter

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25-26 December School Counseling Newsletter

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25-26 November School Counseling Newsletter

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25-26 October School Counseling Newsletter

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K-2nd - 25-26 September School Counseling Newsletter

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3rd-5th - 25-26 September School Counseling Newsletter

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What are The Zones of Regulation? -Official Video-

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Empathy questions for elementary students:

What makes you feel happy, upset, angry, or sad?

How do you know when someone is listening to you?

What would you say to a classmate who was feeling sad?

How does it feel when someone interrupts you or doesn’t listen to what you say?

Those questions might be a little too easy if you teach older kids. Consider these empathy questions for middle school students:

What does it mean to put yourself in someone else’s shoes?

Can you think of an experience where you wished someone understood how you felt?

How can you show better empathy to other people?

By the time students move up from middle school, they might be ready for empathy questions for high school students:

How is empathy different from sympathy?

Why do you think some people have an easier time empathizing with others?

How do you think social media affects our ability to feel empathy?

Who is someone who shows empathy well? What makes you feel that way?

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Empathy (1 of 3) | Social Emotional Learning for kids

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PBS KIDS Talk About | SELF-CONFIDENCE & DETERMINATION | PBS KIDS

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Sesame Street: Janelle Monae - Power of Yet

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Growth Mindset (1 of 5) | Social Emotional Learning for kids

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Mindfulness: "being aware of what's happening in the present moment".

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It can be very hard to calm a class full of children, especially when they're bored. But, what if we told you that we have a secret for that?

Mindfulness is the state of mind when you're being conscious or aware of something. It helps you calm down and have a better understanding of your thoughts and emotions. And mindfulness activities for the classroom are a perfect way to achieve it.

Mindfulness is an important exercise that children should be encouraged to apply. What better way is there to convince them to do so than games! 🙌

MentalUP is an educational gaming app that has 150+ games to support the mental development of children. It also features 240+ physical games to support children do their daily movements. 🧠🤸

The mindfulness games offer a fun area and practical way to help your children achieve mindfulness. There are also games that boost memory, enhance focus, and so much more! 🤩✨

Benefits of Teaching Mindfulness in the Classroom

Promoting mindfulness in the classroom is not only a way to calm the students as mindfulness education has many other benefits for them. Here are some of the benefits of mindfulness for children according to the APA (American Psychological Association):

Reduced overthinking

Reduced stress levels and anxiety

Working memory boost

Enhanced focus

Less emotional (more logical) reactivity

Functions as a childhood obesity prevention strategy

Calmness

Cognitive flexibility

Improved social relationships

Increased immune system

Improved well-being

Increased information processing speed

Decreased task effort

Empathy

Compassion

Raises awareness of emotions

Raises self-awareness

Reinforces intrapersonal intelligence

As you can see, mindfulness has many mental, psychological, social and physical benefits. Therefore, the importance of mindfulness for students can't be overstated.

We gathered the 10 best mindfulness activities for the classroom to be able to adapt mindfulness education to children's lives.

10 Classroom Mindfulness Activities

You can provide mindfulness in elementary education by including fun mindfulness class activities into the curriculum. We'll start with one of the most basic mindfulness practices for students breathing.

1. Shark Fin Breathing Exercise

You can start teaching mindfulness in the classroom with this easy exercise. It's also one of the fun mindfulness activities for kindergarten.

Benefits

Shark Fin breathing exercises are perfect for facilitating calmness quickly and spontaneously and for helping kids sort out their thoughts and feelings while relaxing the body. It helps focus on the "now". You can also use it as one of a great warm up games for kids before longer mindfulness activities for students.

Duration

This exercise will take 2 minutes at most. We told you it was quick.

How to Apply

1. Students can sit down on a chair, floor or comfortable surface, and close their eyes.

2. Tell them to place their thumb on their forehead with their other fingers pointing to the sky like a shark fin. Their palm should be looking towards their side.

3. They should take a deep breath and move their hand slowly down from their forehead to their chest, keeping the 5-S's in mind:

4. Breathe in and out a few more times.

5. They can open their eyes; encourage them to notice how they feel.

2. Mindful Breathing Colors Exercise

Mindful breathing colors exercise is one of the creative mindfulness techniques for the classroom.

Benefits

Children will calm down and let go of their unhealthy thoughts and feelings. It will also help kids manage stress and overcome anxiety.

Duration

This exercise will take 5 minutes.

How to Apply

1. Ask students to assign colors to their feelings. First, start with a relaxing positive color.

2. Then, ask them to think of a color that represents stress, sadness, or anger, or whichever of those emotions is most relevant or suitable for your students' age group etc.

3. Students start breathing. When they breathe in, they imagine inhaling the relaxing color and visualize it filling their lungs.

4. When they breathe out, they imagine exhaling the stress, sadness, or anger color out of their body.

3. Mindful Breathing Exercise

Mindful breathing exercises are another example of quick mindfulness activities for the classroom.

Benefits

Mindful breathing enables students to be present, improve their concentration and sort out their feelings.

Duration

This exercise is one of the 5 minute classroom mindfulness activities.

How to Apply

1. Students can choose either standing or sitting for this activity.

2. Ask students to put both their hands on their belly. If you want, you can give out small wooden blocks or similar items to place on their belly as well.

3. Students can close their eyes, stare at the ceiling or look down to their hands.

4. Guide students in taking three slow deep breaths in and out to see if they can feel their hands or the object on their belly moving with the air flowing through their bodies.

5. You may like to count for each breath. Count "one" when inhaling, "two" while exhaling. Count "three" with another breath in and "four" with the following breath out.

6. Complete counting after 5 minutes. You may want to set up a timer to keep track of time.

Encourage students to think about how the breath feels. It is important that they only focus on breathing and that their minds don't wander off during the exercise.

Mindfulness exercises help improve children's focus and attention span. However, there are other practices designed for the sole purpose of improving children's attention, focus, and concentration skills. MentalUP is one of them with its learning games and workouts for kids.

MentalUP is a pedagogically certified app that has 150+ games that, from improving concentration to boosting visual intelligence, all have their specific goals. You can create a plan based on the skills your children need improvement and easily track their progress.
Download the App
4. Mindful Body Scan Exercise

Such ideas for mindfulness in the classroom are perfect to practice in class because students can take them home. Better yet, ask them to teach their parents the mindfulness exercises they learn in class.

Benefits

Need a time out? Mindful body scans help children relax, focus on bodily sensations, and calm their minds. It is also one of the exercises that are perfect before bedtime.

Duration

This exercise takes about 10 minutes.

How to Apply

1. Students should lie on the floor, with their hands and arms placed slightly apart from their bodies. It is better if they close their eyes but it's okay if they prefer to look at the ceiling instead.

2. Encourage students to pay attention to their feet for 5 to 10 seconds.

3. Tell them to move their focus on to their toes, then ankles, then calves and knees. Continue focusing on each body part until you reach the head.

4. Ask your students how each part of the body feels to bring their awareness to their bodies and to the moment.

5. If they feel any tightness or stress, tell them to imagine breathing the stress out of that part of the body with each exhale.

You may ask questions like "How do your arms feel?", "Are your hands cold or warm?" to draw the students' attention to the body scan and amplify the benefits of mindfulness for children.

5. Mindful Eating Exercise

It's snack time! This is one of the mindfulness strategies for the classroom that helps us notice actually how mindlessly we do things. You will be able to teach them that it is better to savor and enjoy a bar of chocolate instead of gobbling it in less than a minute.

This exercise is best for 3rd graders and up. Be careful with foods that are choking hazards and beware of allergies.

Benefits

Mindful eating can combat overeating as it helps us realize how much and what exactly we eat. It allows focusing on the flavors and tastes of different foods and noticing what effects different foods have on how our bodies feel. It also builds the capacity for stillness and mindful focus.

Duration

Mindful eating exercises take about 5 minutes.

How to Apply

1. First, choose your food. A piece of candy or chocolate, a small fruit like grapes or strawberry, or a raisin will do. Be sure that none of your students are allergic to your choice of food.

2. Have the students put the food in their mouths. The key is that they can't chew it or swallow it.

3. Have them savor the flavor. Can they feel the aroma released in their mouths while they breathe?

4. For three minutes, students should focus on the candy melting in their mouths slowly or the raisin watering their mouths.

5. After 5 minutes is up, they can chew and swallow.

Mindfulness is about being present, so if their thoughts drift away, tell them to simply bring them back to the candy.

6. Mindful Walking Exercise

Ready to get out of the classroom? This activity is best completed outdoors and if suitable, students may walk barefoot to have a more intense experience. To ensure safety, give students a clear boundary for where they can walk during this exercise.

Benefits

These kinds of outdoor activities for kids, such as ​​mindful walks, help children sort out their feelings and thoughts while calming the mind. It also helps them reduce stress and anxiety. Try it with your elementary students.

Duration

A 10-minute walk will be enough for this mindfulness exercise.

How to Apply

1. Each student should select a small area where they can walk in a line for about 5 or 6 steps and back to where they started without interfering with others.

2. First, take three deep breaths, or apply Shark Fin exercise (#1 exercise in this list)

3. Tell your students to take 5 or 6 steps in one direction, then slowly turn to the opposite way, and finally take 5 or 6 steps back to where they started.

It will be more effective if the students focus on the following during the exercise:

What is the texture of the surface under their feet?

Which part of their foot touches the ground first when they take a step?

Does their body feel heavy or light?

How do they walk? Are they slouching or dragging their feet?

How is their posture? Are they standing straight?

How naturally does their body move?

You can also discover PE games to strengthen kids' mindfulness skills and bodies besides walking!

7. Mindful Hearing Exercise

There is a difference between hearing and listening, whereby hearing is just the bare perception of sound by the ear and listening is a conscious action of processing that stimulus. Thus, the lack of listening skills is one of the main reasons children can experience learning difficulties. Try mindful hearing, an exercise that helps develop listening skills. It teaches children to concentrate on what they hear and to start actively listening to it.

Later on, ask your students to apply this exercise to your voice and concentrate on what you say when they feel disconnected to the class. You can apply it to students of all ages.

Benefits

As mindful hearing will help calm the body, it will also help improve listening and concentration skills. It is also one of the quick mindfulness activities for the classroom and perfect for sudden anger, cry bursts, and other raging emotions.

Duration

This exercise will only take 2 minutes.

How to Apply

For this exercise, you will have to guide the students and you'll need something that makes a bell sound (you can easily find apps that provide a bell sound if you don't have one). Here are the instructions that you should give before ringing the bell:

Once I ring the bell, concentrate only on the sound that you hear.

Close your eyes. Try to notice if you hear the sound louder in one ear than you do in the other.

If you notice your thoughts are wandering, simply bring your attention back to the sound of the bell and tune out other noises.

Keep your eyes closed until the sound is completely gone.

After you open your eyes, remain silent until you hear my voice again.

Here is how the students should apply it:

1. Begin with three deep breaths.

2. The students should close their eyes when the teacher rings the bell.

3. The exercise is completed when the sound has completely faded.

8. Mindful Senses Exercise

This mindful exercise for the classroom is better for students in middle school and up. You can even apply it to college students or adults.

Benefits

It can be used to help calm a busy mind, reduce stress, and bring our awareness to the "now". It also helps improve concentration.

Duration

5 minutes for 5 senses.

How to Apply

This exercise is quite simple. All you have to do is close your eyes and think of (and focus on):

5 things you can see that you normally wouldn't care to see

4 things you can touch that you normally wouldn't care to touch

3 things you can hear that you normally wouldn't care to hear

2 things you can smell that you normally wouldn't care to smell

1 thing you can taste that you normally wouldn't care to taste

All things and activities require a certain amount of concentration and attention from us - from basic ones like noticing a blooming flower on your way to school or work, to more demanding ones like doing homework or attending a meeting at work. You or your children may be missing out on a lot of things if you have problems concentrating and paying attention.

MentalUP is an educational app with over 10+ million users worldwide. Children and adults can pick their age and areas that need improvement to form their personalized program.
Get Started Now
9. Mindful Gratitude Exercise

Expressing your gratitude for things is not only good for mindfulness, but it will also help children have a more positive attitude towards life. This activity is best for students who will be comfortable enough to write down things such as 4th graders and up.

Benefits

Writing down your gratitude for the day will help develop compassion, empathy and tolerance for others while giving a chance to reconsider your thoughts and actions throughout the day.

Duration

It will take about 5-10 minutes. It is important to do it every day and to assign a specific time for it. For example, it could be the first thing when the class starts, after lunch or a little before the end of the day.

How to Apply

1. Students can make a Gratitude Journal out of a notebook or a folder and paper.

2. Ask your students to take five minutes to think of something that they feel grateful for today. If your students can't come with any, here are some friendly reminders of things they can be grateful for:

An act of kindness that they received from someone that day.

A person in their lives that they appreciate.

An activity or hobby that they like to pursue.

A skill or ability they have.

A part of their body that they are grateful for.

An item that they love.

Something that happened that day that made them laugh.

10. Mindful Safari Exercise

There are so many beautiful things out there in nature that we just pass by without even noticing. Take your students out for a mini safari adventure where they will get to be a piece of it. And it's not only for the little ones! This exercise can also provide mindfulness for high school students as one of the most preferred co-curricular activities.

Benefits

This mindful safari which is among the most effective balance exercises for kids, will enable students to enjoy the present moment and appreciate other living beings around them. This way, they will inevitably arouse a feeling of calmness and relaxation.

Duration

It can take 10-30 minutes depending on the size of the area you're discovering and the interesting things the children encounter.

How to Apply

1. Ask the students to remain quiet, calm their thoughts, and move slowly while on safari.

2. Tell them to try to enhance their sense of sight, touch, and sound to be able to pay close attention to their surroundings.

3. Together, search for beautiful natural objects that you can explore. When you find one, ask your students to examine it while asking themselves questions like:

What does it look like?

What color is it?

What does it smell like?

Can I touch it?

What does it feel like?

4. Search for other residents and moving creatures of nature.

5. When they do find a moving creature, encourage them to quietly watch the creature and examine how it moves, the colors on it, and other details that identify it.

🎁 BONUS: If you're looking for more practices for students, check out our mind games! They will teach children patience, strategic thinking, and how to reduce stress and can help them improve their developmental skills. Also, kids can enjoy playing unblocked games for school by themselves safely.

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10 Classroom Mindfulness Activities for Students | MentalUP

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Are you looking for mindfulness class activities? These 10 mindfulness exercises for students are going to make teaching mindfulness in the classroom fun!

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Mind Yeti is a library of research-based guided mindfulness sessions that help kids and their adults calm their minds, focus their attention and connect to t…

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8 Activities for Students (and Teachers) to Create a Mindful Classroom

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Everyone in the classroom benefits when there are opportunities throughout the day to reflect and prepare for learning.

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1. Keep a list of all the decisions you make from the time you leave school until you go to bed. When the list is complete, mark each decision "hot" if you made the decision for yourself, or "cold" if someone influenced your decision.

2. Explain the difference between a small decision and a big decision. Why is it important to give more thought to a big decision?

3. Give an example of a big decision you have made. Explain why you made this decision, what its consequences were, and what you would or would not choose to do differently if you had the chance.

Using Quotations

"A man's judgment is best when he can forget himself and any reputation he may have acquired and can concentrate wholly on making the right decisions."

Have students give examples of how the desire to protect their reputation can influence the decisions they make.

Addressing Multiple Learning Styles

Have students choose children's picture books in which a main character has to make a choice.

Have students read the books they chose to the class, a younger sibling, or a student from a lower grade. Discuss what made the characters act as they did.

Writing in Your Journal

Have students write about a decision they are proud (or not proud) of. Have them describe how they made the decision, whether making the decision was difficult, and what consequences it had. Tell students that they will share their work.

Have students read from their journals in small groups. Encourage students to practice active listening by asking questions and summarizing what they've heard.

Additional Resources

Have students read selections from SOS: Stressed Out Students' Guide to Handling Peer Pressure by Lisa Medoff. (This book deals with certain topics that may be sensitive issues for your students. Please make the selections carefully.)

Discuss what students read in the book. Talk about peer pressure as an element in decision making.

Homework

Have students keep a list of all the decisions they make during the day. (Tell them they can stop at 50 if they get tired.) When they are finished, students should rank the consequences of each decision on a scale of one to three, with one indicating an unimportant consequence.

Have students share their findings in small groups. Does the importance placed on particular types of decisions vary from person to person?

Additional Resources

Have students read selected chapters from Don't Sweat the Small Stuff...and It's All Small Stuff by Richard Carlson. This book provides strategies for keeping problems in their proper perspectives.

Have students choose a strategy from the book and create a poster about that strategy. Have them explain the strategy to a classmate.

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Keep a list of all the decisions you make from the time you leave school until you go to bed. When the list is complete, mark each decision "hot" if you made the decision for yourself, or "cold" if someone influenced your decision. Explain the difference between a small decision and a big decision.

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Rainbow Relaxation: Mindfulness for Children

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Respect: “seeing value in all people and treating them with care”.

OR

Respect: “Being respectful means taking responsibility for your actions, caring about others, and about the environment in which we live and learn”.

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Create an anchor chart about Respect – what does it look like, sound like, and feel like? 

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Create an anchor chart about Respect – what does it look like, sound like, and feel like? 

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Using Crayon Template (attached) – have students create the following: (I am unique because…)

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Using Crayon Template (attached) – have students create the following: (I am unique because…)

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Does someone get your respect…because of their intelligence? Do you give someone respect because their smart?

Is it about them being a certain age? Like you choose to respect someone because they’re older versus younger?

Does someone need to earn your respect? (if students give a thumbs up for this one, ask them how someone would earn their respect)

Does someone get your respect by showing respect to you first?

Or does someone get your respect just for being human?

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Make a chart with your students about how you are each unique!

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I treat other people the way I want to be treated.

I am considerate of other people.

I treat people with civility, courtesy, and dignity.

I accept personal differences.

I work to solve problems without violence.

I am never intentionally ridicule, embarrass, or hurt others.

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3 Minutes Body Scan Meditation - Mindfulness For Kids And Adults

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5 Videos where Kelso uses his small problem solutions.

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Five great stories that give kids great examples of the choices in action. Print and read these aloud yourself, or play the narrated videos.

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Responsibility isn't something students develop overnight. It takes lots of practice to show self-control when things don't go our way, to be accountable for our decisions, to finish what we start, and to keep trying even when we want to give up. Our middle and high school students need lots of opportunities to practice (and fail!) at these skills in order to become responsible young adults. Research confirms what we've known forever. CASEL, the Collaborative for Academic, Social, and Emotional Learning reports that not only does this type of social and emotional learning build lifelong, future-ready skills, but it also improves academic achievement and supports teen's overall well-being.

With that in mind, here are five super-fun games that teach responsibility that your older students will love revisiting.

Game 1: You're in Charge

How to play: Sometimes the simplest games are the most memorable and powerful. The rules of this game are simple. Plan for a period of time during the day (or class period) where a student becomes class leader. That student is now "in charge." Obviously, you'll need to set up some rules and guidelines first. For instance, "you can't leave the classroom," or "all normal school rules must be followed." In fact, this game works best when the student leader has a specific lesson to teach the class. Rotate through students each day and plan for time to reflect. Students will have a lot to say about their peers leadership skills. And they'll learn a lot about how hard it can be to run a group of people.

How it teaches responsibility: A big part of learning to be responsible is learning to take ownership over your actions. Even for adults, it can be frustrating when we feel like our leadership isn't making good decisions. Teens may struggle with feelings of frustration or even struggle to follow their peers instructions, but this is a teachable moment for them. As the teacher, we can model appropriate behavior for dealing with frustration and how to appropriately voice those feelings. We can help the student leaders communicate clearly with their classmates. And, when we reflect with the class, we can help them recognize what qualities the best classroom leaders seemed to possess.

Game 2: Follow My Lead Drawing Game

How to play: Place students in pairs, one facing you and the other facing in the opposite direction with a piece of paper and a pencil. Next, tell your students that you are going to show a simple picture to the students facing you. After they've had 15 seconds to look at it, you will hide it (but don't erase it). Once you say "go," they'll have one minute to describe the image to their partner in as much detail as possible. At the end of the minute, the drawing students will bring their pictures to the front of the room to compare them to the original. The drawings that are most similar can be deemed the "winners." The process then repeats with the partners switching spots.

(Quick tip: It works best to choose pictures that are simple to draw but have several details. For example, a basic house with a chimney, three windows, and a tree with apples.)

How it teaches responsibility: Although a lot of fun, this game can be frustrating, and that's sort of the point. It can be challenging to try to describe something from memory. It can also be challenging to try to interpret what someone is describing to you and then draw it. Both team members have a responsibility to the other that they must try to meet. You can really enhance this concept by adding a reflection activity to the end of the game. Ask your students how it felt to be the describer or the drawer. Have them explain what frustrations they felt. Discuss appropriate ways to deal with any feelings of nervousness or fear that come from not doing a good job in either role.

Game 3: Flip the Blanket

How to play: Arrange students in small groups or even pairs, depending upon how many blankets you have available (beach towels work as well for pairs or groups of three). Tell all the students to stand on their blanket. Your students must then work together to flip the blanket upside down without having any member of their team step off of it onto the floor. If they do, they must start over again. You can add difficulty by having more students stand on one big blanket, making it a timed game, or even making it a rule that they're not allowed to use their voices to communicate with each other.

How it develops responsibility: While this game is most often recommended as a way to encourage teamwork, it encourages responsibility as well. Students need to be honest about staying on their blanket. They need to communicate with each other about their ideas, accepting when one doesn't work out or advocating for themselves or a teammate if a good idea isn't being heard. Take time to have a conversation afterward to emphasize how students used responsible behavior and decision-making throughout the game.

Game 4: Role-Playing

How to play: Perhaps the most direct approach, role-playing gives students the opportunity to talk through real scenarios they might find themselves in. Make it a game by first breaking students into groups. Next, give each group a different scenario in which responsibility is key. After giving them several minutes to prepare, have students act out their scenarios for their classmates. Some suggestions may include:

One of Stella's chores is to feed her dog every morning and every evening. But two evenings this week, Stella forgot to feed the dog because her friends texted her and asked her to facetime with her. When she asks for her allowance, her father tells her he's only giving her half because of this. She thinks that is unfair. Her father explains his reasoning.

While sitting at lunch, one of Sunny's friends starts spreading a rumor about another friend who isn't there. She's pretty sure it isn't true and knows they would be embarrassed if they found out, but she also knows that her friends might tease her if she tells them to stop. There's a good chance nothing bad will happen if Sunny does nothing. What should she do?

The teacher has asked the class to come up with rules that everyone should follow to make the classroom a nice place to be. The teacher breaks the students into groups to discuss options and then report back to the whole class what rules they think should be put in place. Jamal is placed in a group with Madison and Micah. Madison and Micah start making rules that don't make sense and won't make the class a positive learning environment. Jamal knows that while his classmates might laugh when they hear the silly rules, their teacher will be disappointed in them for not taking the assignment seriously. What should Jamal do?

Farhad really thought he wanted to play lacrosse this school year, so his dad signed him up for the team. But he isn't very good and his teammates occasionally give him a hard time about it. He tells his dad he wants to quit, but his dad says he has to finish out the season. Farhad and his dad each explain their reasoning.

Sarah, Logan, and Zeke are on a team playing a game in class. They lose, but they really believe it's because the teacher didn't follow the rules and showed favoritism to the other teams. They go to talk to the teacher after class.

How it teaches responsibility: Because the scenarios can be directly tied to responsible decision-making, the conversation around each role-play is where the magic happens. Be prepared to discuss different opinions. (For example, is Stella's losing half her allowance a fair punishment? Some students might say yes, others might say no.) The important part of the discussion is to highlight what responsibility looks like for children their age. Did the person in each scenario show self-control when things didn't go their way? Were they accountable for their decisions and did they accept the consequences that came with them? Did they finish what they started and keep trying even when they wanted to give up? These are the cornerstones of what makes someone responsible.

Game 5: Compass Walk

How to play: Put students in pairs (or for a bit more of a challenge, groups of three or four). Give all but one group member blindfolds. Then, the group member who can see must guide their teammates through a series of simple challenges. Some ideas might include:

Walking to the end of a hallway and back while avoiding simple obstacles like cones or chairs.

Stepping over, in, or around small obstacles like Hula-Hoops, yard sticks, or trash cans.

Walking to a specific chair and sitting in it, but not any of the others nearby.

How it teaches responsibility: Students must be responsible regardless of the role they play in this game. For the blindfolded student, they are responsible for listening carefully. They must stay calm if they don't understand the directions and bump into something. If confused, they have to ask for help. For the student giving directions, most importantly they must be responsible for the safety of their partner. They must communicate clearly. And they must be patient when their partner doesn't do what they think they've told them to do. This is also a great game for discussing what happens when people don't behave responsibly. Part of being responsibility is being aware of how the people relying on you feel.

Playing games with our older students can feel like a bit of a risk. Classroom time is valuable and we all want to spend it wisely. But there is plenty of evidence and research to support just how important building students' sense of personal responsibility is not just for their social-emotional learning, but for their academic learning as well. So feel good about playing a responsibility game with your class. Not only are you letting your middle and high school students revisit their childhood for a bit, you're also building skills that will serve them well for the rest of their lives.

For more information about the importance of social-emotional learning, visit the CASEL website.

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5 Great Games for Teaching Your Students About Responsibility

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Help your students develop executive functioning skills and become better classroom citizens with these games that teach responsibility.

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Teach Your Child Responsibility - 7 Tips to Get Started

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The idea that a kid is responsible for things doesn't just happen by itself-it needs to be taught, coached, and learned. Here's how.

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I frequently hear teachers and school faculty talking about how their students lack responsibility. They wonder how to convey to students the importance of this lifelong skill. I use the word skill instead of trait because when we think of things like respect or responsibility or perseverance when related to a character trait, we're saying you've got it or you don't. By framing it for ourselves, other educators, and students as a skill, we're showing that it's something we can absolutely become better at if we understand it and practice it often.

We see the importance of teaching kids responsibility skills in many different ways. It may look like frequently asking about due dates, struggling to complete homework, or lack of class participation, etc. It's important to remember that kids don't want a lecture. That's why it's crucial to incorporate student voices when we talk about responsibility. We also find ways for students to see how being responsible helps them (not just grownups). Students then see responsibility as a valuable skill that can help them be the best version of themselves.

One of my favorite PD books is Relationship, Responsibility, and Regulation by Kristin Van Marter Souers and Pete Hall. It helped me to reframe and redefine some of my ideas about responsibility. In this book, the authors believed that feeling capable was crucial to acting responsibly. They further defined responsibility as including positive self-concept, sense of efficacy (effort optimism - believing if they put forth the effort, they will have success), sense of capability and competence, belief in control over one's success, self-reliance, ability to plan and problem solve and organize information, and ability to pause and think before responding.

Using this definition of responsibility we need to provide them with lots of opportunities to experience success. Only then can we begin to help our students become more responsible

We need to show them their strengths and point out when their actions lead to positive outcomes. And of course, we need to teach them explicitly about responsibility!

Emphasize WHY Responsibility is Important:

Students should walk away with a good understanding of what makes showing responsibility important and valuable to themselves and the community. If students can see the value here, they will be more likely to have the motivation necessary to show responsibility consistently. Below are a few reasons I like to provide:

Everyone doing their part is what a community is all about. For communities like the ones at school or home to thrive, each person is depended on to do their part to create a safe, welcoming, and thriving environment. Jobs according to each community members' strengths are divided among all members so that all expectations and goals for the group are met. Generally, communities that have members who are responsible for the collective success rather than one or a few members who have the responsibilities are more enjoyable to participate in.

People are able to achieve more when they possess and practice strong responsibility skills. In order to meet goals, you must take aligned action. Without taking action you can't make you. Responsibility comes in when you must make plans for and take the action steps necessary to meet those goals. If students can see the connection between practicing responsibility to take action and meeting their goals, then they will most likely see the benefits of being responsible.

We need to understand what is in our control and what is out of our control. It is important for students to see that sometimes, they do not have control over things that happen to them or around them. They need to be able to decipher between what they can make choices about and what is simply beyond their realm of control. In this previous post about problems inside or outside your control, I walk you through how I use the book Alexander and the Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day to discuss problems in and out of our control. Students see that some problems can be avoided or changed by making different choices. Other problems cannot be changed and we do not have control over them.

Show Students the Different Elements of Responsibility at School

1. Connect their choices with consequences.

This shows children how much power and control they have in a given situation and creates empowered students who know they are in control of how situations go many times. Since they are children, they will not always be in control, so when possible, it is important for teachers, parents, and other adults in the child's life to allow freedom of choice when possible. This in turn will give the child a major confidence boost!

Allowing children the freedom to make their own choices also helps kids see that our actions can have positive or negative consequences. Many students need help to see that the choices they make are connected to consequences, so I created a lesson that shows students various situations where they would need to make choices.

For primary grades, it is important to introduce responsible decision-making skills. This 3 part interactive lesson for lower elementary helps students understand and connect choices and consequences, make helpful decisions at school, and recognize dysregulation, use a calming skill, then make a helpful choice. It also includes differentiated activities and worksheets to help students practice these skills.

In this upper elementary Choices and Consequences Lesson, students were able to recognize the impact of their choices and become more responsible decision-makers. I paired it with a Kid President video, but you could also look at a Chutes and Ladders game board as a hook to scaffold or preview the concept!

2. Whose job is it?

Students are in the unique position of being only partially responsible (and having only partial control) over many things in their lives. They share responsibilities with parents, teachers, and other adults in their lives. We need to be explicit with them about which bits and pieces are their responsibility.

Many times students will say, "My mom forgot to sign that!" or "You didn't tell me to do that!" Teachers frequently find themselves giving constant reminders and repeating themselves in an effort to get students to remember to even take responsibility.

In this previous blog post, I explain my lesson "Whose Job Is It?" which teaches how students can decipher whose jobs are whose. Students were given important school tasks like learning reading skills, being on time and present at school, and completing homework. Then students must decide what jobs are the teachers, parents, or students for each school task. Students were able to see that much of the responsibility fell to them, but other jobs were up to the adults. It helped them see that there are many jobs that a student should have when completing those school tasks. They were made aware of the things that they could have control over when it comes to school and places where they may have been relying too much on the adults.

3. Take responsibility for your actions.

We need to understand that everyone makes mistakes. But the important thing is that we acknowledge them and learn from them. When you know better, then you can do better. This is such a good skill to model for students. Even as teachers and counselors we make mistakes. Next time you make one, talk to students about how you learned from it! They love hearing real-world examples from grown-ups!

Help students to identify what to say to take responsibility for their actions. Students need a clear understanding of how to take responsibility for a mistake. Model good apologies when mistakes involve others. Apologies should have 3 parts: the "I'm sorry," the reason why you are sorry, and a resolution like "I won't make that mistake again."

Students should also understand what NOT to say in these situations. They should not blame others for their own mistakes or completely ignore that a mistake has been made.

Help students practice figuring out what to do after they've made a mistake to make it better. Teachers and counselors can guide students to the right words to use when taking ownership and responsibility by asking questions like:

What happened?

How did that make you feel?

What was your brain saying?

What was the hardest part for you?

Who else was affected?

What do you think you can do to make this better?

Now, not everything can be made 100% better, especially if there was an injury or unkind words used, but you should always try your best.

4. Be a problem solver.

Children need guidance on how to solve problems independently. Discuss different possible solutions to common problems with students. If they don't have a pencil, they can go to the jar of new pencils in the classroom. Lost homework? Ask for a new copy to do over. If they want to use the swing at recess? They could ask whoever is on it that they get a chance to swing.

Many times children just need some general ideas of how to solve problems. An easy class activity is to have students generate common problems and write on notecards and discuss solutions as a class. You could also create cards with given solutions to common problems that students can then match to the problem.

Here is a previous blog post and lesson on teaching problem solving and taking responsibility. Students already learned about problems inside and outside of their control. So, next, we read the book But It's Not My Fault! and discussed taking ownership of their own problems. We had a "snowball" fight where students wrote common problems on sheets of scrap paper and threw them(safely) across the room. After all the "snowballs" were thrown, students opened one that landed near them, read the problem, and wrote a good solution to their problem. I only recommend the snowball fight if students have had some practice generating solutions to problems. Otherwise, a matching activity works best here.

Looking for More?

Take a look at this previous blog post about restorative practices. Restorative practices are a mindset, a set of beliefs about why people choose positive behavior and the power of relationships. Restorative practices are also a set of strategies schools can use. These practices are to help repair harm and build and repair relationships.

I hope you got some valuable information and reminders that you can bring back to your school or home. Hopefully you can use them to teach children about taking responsibility and brushing up on their responsibility skills.

How do you go about teaching students about responsibility? How do you and your school faculty model responsibility skills? What other ways do you enjoy teaching about taking responsibility?

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Teaching Responsibility to Students - The Responsive Counselor

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I frequently hear teachers talking about how their students lack responsibility. Teaching responsibility to students is tricky, but here's how I do it.

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Bubble Bounce! Mindfulness for Children (Mindful Looking)

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Kelso's Choice wheel

Kelso the frog teaches students how to solve "small" problems on their own. "Small" problems include conflicts that cause "small" feelings of annoyance, embarrassment, boredom, etc. "BIG problems" always need to be taken to an adult. These are situations that are scary, dangerous, illegal, etc.

Kelso has nine choices to solve "small problems." These are illustrated in the Kelso's Choice Wheel. They include:

Go to another game

Talk it out

Share and take turns

Ignore it

Walk away

Tell them to stop

Apologize

Make a deal

Wait and cool off

When a child comes to you to solve their "small problem," tell them to try one to two of Kelso's Choices first. If that doesn't work, then an adult can intervene. Make sure your kids know to ask an adult for help in the event of a "BIG problem."

K.C.'s wheel

K.C.'s Wheel is for the preteens (grades 4-5) that may be a little too mature for Kelso's Choice Wheel. There are "minor problems" that cause minor feelings of annoyance, embarrassment, boredom, etc. There are also "SERIOUS problems" that need to be taken to an adult. These are situations that are scary, dangerous, illegal, etc.

There are eight choices to solve "minor problems." The choice "share and take turns" has been removed since, typically, at grades 4-5 this skill has been developed. There are "verbal choices" and "nonverbal choices" to solve "minor problems":

verbal choices:

nonverbal choices:

Want to bring more Kelso material into the home? The very best resource for families is the Kelso's Choice for Families Kit, a kit made...well...just for families!

Want even more? We've got board and card games, posters, activity book, story book and more! Visit our Product page or email us at customerservice@kelsoschoice.com.

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Easy Activities to Teach Choices and Consequences

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Help students reflect on their choices and their consequences through one of these 5 engaging activities for elementary students.

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Mindfulness Exercises for Kids in the Classroom - Waterford.org

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Use these 51 mindfulness activities to help children recognize and manage their thoughts, emotions, and actions—all important SEL skills.

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51 Mindfulness Exercises for Kids in the Classroom

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4th/5th Grade - What are my options after college