- Whole Child Counseling
Easter Counseling Activities and Spring Social Emotional Learning Lessons
Updated: Nov 22
I live in New England, and our winters can be tough so for me, Spring is such a magnificent time of year! As soon as my crocuses start blooming and the snow starts melting, I just feel like the season is filled with so much HOPE! There are bright colors, blossoming trees, and flowers and this time of year makes people feel alive with joy. And this is a beautiful time to introduce engaging lessons with your students and children revolving around the season.
Incorporating Spring and the holidays associated with the season can have a tremendous impact on students' learning. Also, Spring allows people to come together for many fun activities. This is the perfect way to connect SEL competencies to the bigger world.
I have many resources I want to share them with you!
Spring Self-Awareness SEL Puzzle Activity
Understanding one’s emotions, thoughts, and values can influence behavior and actions. This is called self-awareness. If a person does not understand themselves, confusion could rain on them and others they are trying to communicate with. My Easter and Spring Feelings Matching PUZZLES can help students understand through matching the feeling to the corresponding face.
To help you differentiate and use this product with different kids, I have two-piece puzzles where you match the face to the feelings word, to help work on emotional identification in others. I then have a more complex 3 piece puzzle, where you match the picture of the feeling face with the appropriate feeling word and a matching scenario. Best of all, these puzzles are self-correcting and they can be used in individual counseling sessions, in small group work, in centers, or independently for early finishers in the classroom!
Spring Self-Management SEL Movement Based Activity
Learning how to control our emotional state, thoughts and actions is a massive part of our development as human beings. This is self-management, and believe it or not, and it continues throughout life. Think of how far ahead a student would be if they knew how to manage their stress, develop organizational skills, and set goals? These are part of self-management.
I find that incorporating movement into my sessions is very effective when working with kids! This Easter Brain Breaks Would You Rather? Movement Digital and Print Activity is a perfect resource to help students develop both self-awareness and self-management skills! This can be used as a spring classroom brain break, in counseling sessions to build self-management skills. If using in a group or classroom setting, you can even bring social awareness into the equation, by discussing how everyone's answers are unique. My students love these because it combines two things they love - movement and would you rather and this or that questions!
Spring Responsible Decision Making SEL Game
Decisions are a part of life, and many factors go into decision-making. We want our students and children to make healthy decisions based upon recognizing social aspects, personal goals, safety, and social norms. This is responsible decision-making. The Spring EASTER Expected and Unexpected Behavior Choice Digital Social Skills Game will give your students the tools to identify whether choices are expected or unexpected. These scenarios lead to some great discussions about making the best decision in various situations.
This self-correcting digital and print social skills game is a fun social-emotional learning activity for the Spring season to review 30 different prompts including feelings, expected, and unexpected behavior choices. This resource comes with a digital game, as well as 30 printable cards and 2 sorting mats.
Spring SEL Social Awareness & Relationship Skills
Social awareness can entail many things. Not everyone is a social butterfly or can instantly tune into another person’s feelings. But can a student empathize with other people? Can they step into another's shoes and see things from that other person's perspective or point of view? Does a student have the ability to treat others fairly? These are some of the aspects involved in social awareness. We live in a diverse world, and forming and keeping healthy relationships, and social interactions is a fundamental skill.
My students love these feelings color by code activities! I love that they are differentiated, and include both digital and print! Check out this Naming Feelings Spring Bumblebee Color by Code Activity which has reflection questions for self-reflection, social awareness, and relationship skills. If you like discounts, I also have a Spring feelings color by code bundle and ALL of my color by code feelings activities for a full year available in this bundle!
Feelings and Positive Affirmtion Spring No-Prep Mazes
These Spring Easter Positive Affirmation and Feelings Mazes are a fun no-prep way to work on self esteem! This is a great social-emotional learning activity for small groups, individual counseling sessions, centers, or early finishers. Includes 6 mazes, positive self-talk affirmations to repeat, maze to identify the feeling with 2 given choices, maze to write down the feeling from the picture shown, dice to prompt feelings discussions, 19 two-piece feelings puzzles to match the face with the feeling word, and 19 scenario cards to figure out the feeling.
22 feelings are reviewed in this resource including: happy, mad, shocked, confused, sad, scared, shy, excited, bored, nervous, annoyed, frustrated, curious, funny, tired, furious, embarrassed, silly, skeptical, astonished, disappointed, and loving.
Easter and Spring Counseling Activity Bundle
Or how about getting all of the above resources in one incredible bundle?! The Easter and Spring Social-Emotional Bundle includes 7 Spring Social-Emotional Learning Resources that review:
Naming feelings
Affirmations
Positive self-talk
Expected behavior
This resource is perfect for celebrating the Spring season and the Easter holiday in a fun way while focusing on social-emotional learning.
You'll get puzzles, mazes, would you rather? movement game, expected behavior game, dice, and color by code feelings activities!
Sensory Inspired Feelings Dough and Drawing Mats Activity
My K-2 students LOVE these dough and drawing mats! This Spring and Easter Naming Feelings Dough and Drawing Emotions SEL Activity Mats comes with 45 different feelings mats in bunnies, chicks, carrots, and eggs, 40 scenario cards, and dice with feelings prompts to extend the conversations. These fun drawing or play doh mats can be used as an activity for exploring feelings in a fun hands on sensory-friendly way! Children can draw on the blank faces or mold dough to discuss what emotions the bunny, chick, carrot, and egg may be feeling to celebrate the Spring Season. Feelings covered in this activity include: annoyed, angry, confused, embarrassed, excited, happy, proud, sad, scared, silly, shocked, and worried.
I usually have the kids:
First, identify the feelings on the picture cards
Next, match the scenario cards with the picture cards
Then, draw or sculp with dough feelings on the mats
Last, have the kids choose a feeling but don't tell the other people. They sculpt or draw it, and we try to guess!
Spring Social-Emotional Learning SEL Board Games
I made these 10 digital and print Easter and Spring themed social emotional board games as a fun way to review 5 concepts like feelings and perspective taking, problem solving, expected behavior choices, size of the challenge, and matching the reaction to the challenge.
This also comes with the 40 scenario card prompts, rules for playing games poster, feelings poster, size of the challenge poster, dice, pawns, and spinners. 5 SEL topics include:
✔ Is this a good choice? Use this game to discuss if the behavior is a good choice or a poor choice.
✔ What would you do? Use this game to discuss what the child would do if they were in that situation.
✔ How are they feeling? Use this game to discuss what each of the people in the scenario may be feeling and why. This helps work on perspective-taking and emotional identification skills by discussing how they might feel if they were in that situation.
✔ What is the size of the challenge? Use this game to first figure out if there is a challenge or not. If there is a problem, they can then identify what the size of the challenge or problem is.
✔ Does the reaction match the size of the challenge? Use this game to decide first, if there is even a challenge or problem or not. If there is, discuss whether the reaction matches the size of the challenge or not. If not, they can then discuss what reaction would be more appropriate for the situation.
Connecting Thoughts and Feelings CBT Based Kid's Game
Connecting Thoughts and Feelings: Flower Feelings and Thought Pots is a fun activity for kids to practice and understand the cognitive-behavioral CBT concept that their thoughts influence their feelings! This activity will help kids understand how their thoughts and feelings are connected and is available in both digital and print formats.
This is a versatile resource that can be used in many ways including to:
Match the feeling flower with the correlating thought pot.
Sort the pots into helpful and unhelpful thought piles, using the two seed packet visuals.
When unhelpful thoughts are identified, change them into more helpful thoughts.
Use the larger pots to write down thoughts to match the feeling flower picked.
Have children write down thoughts on the larger pots and then sort them into helpful and unhelpful piles, using the two seed packet visuals.
Match the feelings flower visuals to the shovel feeling word.
Looking for a Free SEL Problem Solving Activity?
I found these really cute bug Easter eggs which I thought went perfect to go with my problem solving freebie for teaching kids the sentence frame "It bugs me when ____. I wish you would ____." ! I love to use the book, A Bug and a Wish with this activity too.
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I hope these Easter SEL counseling resources supply a boost to your seasonal planning and lessons. I believe focusing on the social-emotional learning of the whole child is a key to their growth and development.