Use engaging gratitude activities to help children notice, feel, and express thankfulness, such as gratitude jars, thank-you cards, gratitude trees, and acts of kindness. These practices help deepen appreciation, build empathy, boost emotional well-being, and foster connection in classrooms or at home.

Discover beloved picture books like Thank You, Omu! and Llama Llama Gives Thanks, paired with five practical tips to help kids cultivate thankfulness. From gratitude journals and kind notes to family projects and modeling behaviors, these ideas invite children to notice and express appreciation in meaningful, interactive ways.

Tired of wasting time searching for your counseling and SEL resources? Learn how to build a searchable SEL activities database using Google Sheets so you can quickly find exactly what you need when planning groups, lessons, or sessions.

Learn how to use a master schedule and weekly plan to organize school counseling sessions, meetings, and prep time. Includes step-by-step guidance, a free template, and Google Docs tips to save hours each week!

This hands-on origami box activity is more than just a craft. It’s a therapeutic tool for exploring anger, hidden emotions, and coping strategies with kids and teens. With step-by-step instructions, art prompts, and counseling ideas, this project supports emotional expression, self-awareness, and resilience through creativity.

Explore engaging fall counseling and social-emotional learning activities for Autumn, Halloween, and Thanksgiving!

This post explains how to create a shout out book that boosts teacher and staff morale. You’ll find easy steps for assembling a printable book, inviting colleagues to write positive messages, and sharing it during meetings or common spaces. This simple tool helps build a culture of gratitude and connection in schools.

Talking to kids about tough topics like illness, addiction, or loss can feel overwhelming. This guide gives you clear, compassionate tips for having those hard conversations—with book recommendations and exactly what to say, so kids feel safe, supported, and understood.

This post breaks down how to write S‑M‑A‑R‑T IEP and treatment plan goals for social emotional and mental health support. You’ll learn what makes goals Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant and Time‑bounded, and see clear examples using real student scenarios. It also explains how to select supports, collect measurable data, write objectives and collaborate with families and teams.

This post breaks down how to write S‑M‑A‑R‑T IEP and treatment plan goals for social emotional and mental health support. You’ll learn what makes goals Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant and Time‑bounded, and see clear examples using real student scenarios. It also explains how to select supports, collect measurable data, write objectives and collaborate with families and teams.

Celebrate summer as a chance for families to grow together. This post highlights fun, meaningful activities—storytelling nights, pen‑pal projects, nature walks, community service, and more—that strengthen communication, empathy, emotional regulation, and connection. These shared experiences make SEL feel simple, joyful, and part of everyday summer life.

This post explains how therapists can design a calm and professional Instagram feed without spending hours on graphics. You’ll learn simple tips like choosing a cohesive neutral color palette, using consistent fonts and a few select templates, batching posts in advance, and reusing stories or reels. It also covers thoughtful captions, scheduling tools and branding choices that reflect your values while saving time.

This post provides videos and hands on activities to help kids build grit and resilience. You’ll find a custom grit social story alongside animated stories, TED videos, songs, scenarios and games. These resources model perseverance by showing how real people and characters face challenges, keep learning, and reach their goals.

Celebrate spring’s energy with Easter-themed SEL and counseling ideas. From feelings egg hunts and gratitude flower crafts to mindful bunny breathing and collaborative kindness baskets, these activities bring seasonal joy and emotional exploration to classrooms or therapy sessions, helping kids practice empathy, focus, gratitude, and self-awareness in creative ways.

This post highlights eighteen picture books for kids that celebrate growth mindset themes like embracing mistakes, trying again, creative expression, and the power of yet. You’ll find titles that show children learning through error, finding strength in effort, exploring art as a process, and shifting from fixed beliefs to resilient thinking. These books support children in learning to grow, persist and experiment.

This post offers videos and hands-on activities to teach kids about growth mindset. You’ll find ideas for social stories, motivational clips, games, and creative prompts that highlight effort, resilience, and learning from failure. Activities include making “yet crowns,” growth mindset sorting mats, affirmations, journaling prompts, and thought cards to practice shifting fixed mindset language.

This post shares Valentine’s Day social emotional learning activities centered on self compassion and kindness. You’ll find ideas for affirmations, kind note exchanges, emotion collage art, partner reflections and guided sharing prompts. Each activity supports emotion naming, empathy and emotional connection. These tools help students and children boost self worth and spread kindness in their community.

This post provides resources and activities to celebrate National School Counseling Week. You’ll find ideas for classroom lessons, appreciation events, gratitude activities, school wide challenges, and staff recognition. It includes printables, scripts, and customizable prompts. These tools help raise awareness, build community, and honor the impact school counselors have on students and staff.

This post shares winter social emotional learning activities for counseling and classrooms. You will find hands on ideas like winter themed emotion yoga felt story prompts gratitude crafts sharing rounds and check ins tied to seasonal themes. Each activity promotes empathy, self regulation, relationship building and coping skills. These tools help students stay engaged, grounded and resilient through winter months.

This post explains why teaching children to use I‑statements empowers them to handle conflicts with assertiveness and respect. You’ll learn how an I‑statement lets kids name their feelings, identify what caused them, and express needs without blame. It outlines steps to model, practice, and reinforce these messages across everyday situations. These strategies support emotional awareness, communication skills, and collaborative problem solving.

This post shares nine tips for supporting children who feel anxious about drones. You’ll learn to begin with emotion validation, naming what feels scary, offering reassuring facts about how drones fly and their purposes, limiting exposure to alarming news, staying calm as the adult, and creating small practices for children to build comfort. These strategies help children face uncertainty with confidence and support.

Here is a list of the best picture books about perseverance and grit for children

This post outlines a consistent structure for group counseling sessions with children. Each session begins with opening practice, agreement review, and a visual schedule. A trauma informed mindful moment and feelings check follow. Then comes the weekly SEL lesson and coping skill activity, coloring practice of three skills, and a closing mindful moment with final feelings check and closing practice.

This post clarifies the differences between an IEP and a 504 plan for supporting children with disabilities in school. It outlines eligibility requirements, access rights, types of services provided, legal protections, and when to pursue each option. You’ll also find seven practical tips to determine which plan fits a child’s needs and how to work collaboratively with schools.

This post shares how to build trust and work effectively with families through strong communication. You’ll find seven practical tips for difficult conversations with parents, including reaching out early about positives, preparing ahead, using respectful language, staying calm and solution-focused, listening actively, and centering the child. Discussion strategies are paired with sample phrases and communication best practices.

This post shares five key things to know about quitting in family and child contexts. You learn why quitting may signal mental health or motivation issues, how to weigh frustration against persistence, why quitting too early can cost growth, and when quitting can be a healthy choice. These insights help parents and professionals decide thoughtfully and compassionately when quitting is okay.

This post shares sensory bin and dough activities themed for fall, Halloween, and Thanksgiving that help children explore emotions. You’ll find ideas like filling bins with autumn textures, dough stations with feeling labels, pumpkin sensory tubs, and gratitude dough prompts. Each activity encourages emotion naming, sensory exploration, curiosity, and calm while connecting seasonal themes with emotional learning.

This post guides school counselors through crafting SMART goals, implementing interventions, and gathering data to track students’ progress. It defines progress monitoring, explains process perception and outcome data, and shows how to use data to adjust strategies and advocate for counseling services. Practical examples include group attendance, self ratings, behavior referrals and academic outcomes.

This post shares three art therapy inspired activities designed to help children transform anger into positive energy. Activities include scribble release art, creating an anger creature, and designing a calming mandala. Each exercise guides expression, reflection, and emotional regulation in a playful, hands on way. These tools support self awareness, stress relief, and coping skills with minimal materials.

This post shares over 100 curated quotes ideal for email signatures used by counselors, social workers, psychologists, and educators. Quotes cover themes like kindness, resilience, empathy, growth mindset, self care, presence, motivation, and hope. It also offers free Canva templates and guidance for choosing and rotating your quote to reflect your values and inspire daily.

This post lists top Amazon Prime Day deals for educators and school counselors focusing on social emotional learning tools. You’ll find discounted workbooks, books, kits, tumblers and classroom supplies that support SEL teaching. The post offers suggestions for items that promote emotion literacy, resilience building, self regulation skills and kindness in the school setting.

This post shares seven practical tips for parenting highly sensitive kids. You’ll learn how to validate their sensitivity, remain calm during meltdowns, validate feelings, provide downtime, and partner with them gently. It also covers educating children about their temperament and focusing on strengths rather than deficits. These approaches help families honor sensitivity and build trust, resilience, and emotional safety.

This post shares practical organization tips for school counselor offices and classrooms. You’ll find advice on using binders for lesson materials, labeling bins and files, sorting books by category, and setting up systems for referrals and lesson plans. It also covers workspace setup, line of sight for frequently used supplies, and strategies to reduce visual clutter and time spent searching. These ideas streamline workflow and reduce stress.

This post outlines six supportive phrases to say instead of "don’t worry about it" along with five playful strategies to help children understand anxiety. You’ll learn how to validate emotions, offer reassurance, and use creative tools like worry characters, breathing games, and thought reframing. These approaches support kids in building coping skills and calm when worries feel overwhelming.

This post provides ideas to celebrate and promote kindness in schools. You’ll find suggestions for kindness chains, scavenger hunts, note stations, appreciation events, and kindness rocks. It includes printable cards, scripts, and staff recognition prompts. These tools support a school wide culture of compassion, inclusion and gratitude that connects students, teachers, and families.

This post explains how Cognitive Behavioral Therapy or CBT supports children’s mental health by unpacking thoughts, feelings, and behaviors. You’ll find simple explanations of the CBT triangle model, examples of intrusive or distorted thoughts, and coping strategies like emotion naming, thought reframing, and behavior change. These tools help adults guide children toward emotional resilience through structured support.

This post recommends picture books that teach flexible thinking, handling change and bouncing back from disappointment. Titles like A Little Spot of Flexible Thinking show how kids can shift perspectives like a palm tree in the wind. Books such as Tilda Tries Again, Not a Box and Flexible Thinking Ninja model adaptability, persistence and creativity to build resilience in children.

This post challenges common beliefs about autism and highlights why media often shows only severe cases. It explains how many children go undiagnosed or are misdiagnosed because presentations vary widely. The post explores traits like detail focus, binary thinking, and slow deliberative cognitive style. It encourages viewing autism as a neurotype with strengths and supports rather than a deficit.

This post offers curated videos and hands-on activities to teach kids flexible thinking and help them adjust to change. You will find read-alouds, stories, songs and engaging prompts that contrast rigid and flexible thinking. The guide also includes printable games, discussion dice, bingo boards and positive note cards to reinforce adaptability and creative problem solving in classrooms or at home.

This post explains trauma informed mindfulness as a self care tool for teachers and students in classroom settings. You’ll find guidance on offering choice based breathing, somatic movement, mindful observation and external focus. The post also includes how staff can model and co create safe routines that support regulation, emotional resilience and prevent burnout in trauma sensitive schools.

Coloring isn’t just fun. It is a powerful tool for helping kids recognize, express, and regulate emotions. This post shows how using mindful coloring and color by code activities helps expand emotional vocabulary, promotes interoception, and supports calming breaks. You will also find strategies for modeling feelings language and a resource to include coloring pages in grief or calm kits.

These seven tips guide caregivers in supporting young people—helping them name emotions, feel seen, and develop healthy coping habits. From open chats and validation to modeling self-expression, seeking professional support, and cultivating resilience, these strategies offer a foundation for emotional connection and growth.

Discover five practical, research-informed strategies to help kids feel more confident and valuable. From setting realistic goals and embracing mistakes to praising effort, teaching positive self-talk, and celebrating uniqueness, these approaches guide children toward growth, resilience, and lasting self-worth through everyday interactions and support.

Transform unexpected behaviors into learning opportunities using social stories and games. This post walks through why kids may not know expected behavior and offers how to craft playful, visual stories and group games to teach school rules, transitions, and routines, making behavior learning engaging, clear, and supportive for students and educators.

Build trust and help students feel comfortable by introducing yourself and your role. This post shares four fun, grade‑appropriate activities, like using Mrs. Potato Head, a Counselor Toolbox, game show quizzes, and true/false team challenges, that invite students to guess what a counselor does and clear up misconceptions in a playful, memorable way. A printable handout helps families learn too.

SEL directed drawing engages children by tying social-emotional prompts to each drawing step. Kids answer questions about problem-solving, communication, or self-awareness to unlock the next stage. This method enhances fine motor skills, focus, emotional insight, and offers structure in classrooms or counseling groups.

Joy often grows when we lean into sorrow. This post introduces two surprising ways to expand a child’s joy capacity: by welcoming their disappointments and practicing compassionate listening—without rushing to cheer or solve. When children feel seen in their sadness and still experience held limits, their emotional capacity, and ability to truly feel joy deepens.

Explore engaging activities to help children recognize and practice tone of voice including volume, rate, pitch, and intonation. From listening games and emotion matching to tone-based role-play and read-aloud practice, these strategies build listening skills, emotional insight, and social awareness. Ideal for classrooms, counseling groups, or at-home learning.

A Lunch Bunch is a regular, small-group social skills session held during lunch to support peer connection and social-emotional growth. The post covers how to define goals based on student needs, set small groups (4–10 kids), establish structure and routines, select inclusive activities, include role-model peers, and manage logistics for smooth, empathetic delivery.

These seven reflections explore how storytelling helps children and families process challenges, find meaning, and heal. By sharing personal or fictional stories—through play, metaphors, memory work, and narrative revision—kids can express hard emotions, reframe experiences, and discover growth. Stories become tools to bridge past and future, enrich identity, and foster connection.