Healthy Coping Skills Archives

Navigating the Waves

This activity offers a space where students can contemplate emotional and physical responses to help navigate the circumstances they are experiencing. They do this while creating imagery that encourages them to identify what will help them cultivate a sense of resilience and self regulation as they move forward. Students will create a collage (collaborative or…

Worries Are Like Clouds

This unit works with the picture book: Worries Are Like Clouds and supports children to explore what worry is, how it feels in their body, and how they can express worry in a healthy way. The first learning experience in the Worries Are Like Clouds unit is called Jar of Joy. The second learning…

Settling Stones

Children will be introduced to a practice of settling themselves through selecting a stone with their teacher who guides them on how to take care of a special item. This activity is offering you the opportunity to set a daily ritual with your children to help them settle. This ritual can be particularly helpful when…

Ku Kulu Pilina (Building Connections)

Students have the opportunity to connect with self and also a partner to cultivate a relationship with emotions of self and also trust with another person. This learning experience helps students build pilina (connection) through yoga. This unit of work was created by Kilihune Ka’aihue, Makalani Franco-Francis and Christy Chadwick at Maui Arts & Cultural…

Playing with Anger

This is the first learning experience in the unit: Playing with Anger. This learning experience uses the picture book, Anger is like Armour, to help children explore anger. Children learn about the function anger can serve, how anger might feel in their bodies and healthy ways to express anger. This unit of work was created…

The Long and Short Of It

This lesson sequence uses the visual arts to support students in re-connecting with people in their class and starting to explore emotions post a traumatic/crisis event. The approach outlined also encourages the development of creative dispositional qualities that support positive mental wellbeing. In this unit, students will explore and experiment with using the visual arts…

Alone together

Students return to school after a crisis with different experiences. Dance can help students share their stories while seemingly focusing on something else. This dance work helps students focus on their own time away from school in the crisis and see that others will have experienced similar and different things. This unit of work was…

Two Stars and a Wish

This dance work is a way for students to express their thinking about having been in isolation. This is a physical way of thinking about the good and possibly hard things about having been in isolation. While this lesson plan was initially created and used for returning to education post COVID-19 lockdowns, it can be…

Hā Ora

In Hā Ora, you will find three units of work, which are all connected thematically under the concept of Hā Ora. HĀ ORA MEANS A BREATH OF LIFE. This offering is intended to support child wellbeing as they come back into their school communities after a time of challenge. Hā ora also describes having an essence…

The Giant Who Threw Tantrums

A drama about facing our fears From within the protection of a fantasy about a make-believe village threatened by a tantrum throwing giant, this drama gives young children the chance to consider how people respond when they are afraid. In particular, it explores what happens to a group of people living in a small village…