Use this worksheet with students to help them reframe their thoughts about distressing events. ...
**This is a digital file ** To be printed on 8.5 in x 11 in paper. This product contains one worksheet file This thought log activity is designed to assist children in listing and identifying thoughts. This serves as a valuable tool for professionals aiming to address thought errors. This activity encourages students to document their thoughts, allowing educators to gain insight into their cognitive processes. By systematically recording and analyzing thoughts, you can help children identify patterns of cognitive distortions or errors. This proactive approach enables you to tailor interventions to address specific cognitive challenges, fostering cognitive restructuring and promoting healthier thought patterns. The thought log serves as a reflective tool, empowering children to develop metacognitive skills and take an active role in understanding and improving their thought processes. Overall, this activity enhances your ability to provide targeted support for cognitive development in children.
Teach clients to recognize and challenge their automatic thoughts with this CBT worksheet. Automatic thoughts are what they sound like: Thoughts that a...
Teaching CBT to kids is hard. Using stories with them can make it fun and easy! Help students understand the power of their thoughts
Negative thoughts do their best to hold us back, which is why keeping a growth mindset is so important. Use this worksheet to challenge negative thoughts and rethink them using a growth mindset!
CBT is amazing and evidence-based...but there's so much more to it than just challenging and changing thoughts! Here are 5 CBT interventions for kids that don't involve metacognition
Our school has used quite a few Character Education programs throughout the years, but sometimes I find myself looking for more practical, concrete ways to help students deal with conflicts. These are not the larger, bullying-type conflicts that we discuss often in the Character Ed programs, these are the daily recess squabbles, the bickering/arguing, and the tattling that can occur throughout the week. With these types of conflict, I don't want to be the constant referee, negotiating both sides in every disagreement. I want to empower my students to choose between a variety of strategies and develop these necessary skills themselves. While looking for some of these online, I was contacted by Kelso's Choice and couldn't believe my luck. This program seemed to be addressing the skills I was looking for in a very kid-friendly, concrete method. I am excited to share this product review in case you are looking for a similar program. Disclaimer: Although Kelso's Choice sent me these items, all opinions are 100% honest and my own, and I never recommend something I wouldn't or haven't used in my own class. Kelso's Nine Choices The main character in this Character Ed program is a cartoon frog named Kelso. He is present in every K-3 lesson, but not in the lessons for grades 4-5, which I appreciate. He demonstrates all of the strategies that students can choose to solve a small (not big) problem. In grades 2-3, there is a wheel with all of the available choices and I absolutely love that visual. There are nine choices and lessons to introduce each one, along with a story from Willow Pond to help students role-play and solve these small problems for the animal characters. While there are nine choices, the program is very explicit that a student should try two and then get an adult if the conflict persists. There is an entire lesson at the beginning about small and big problems to help students differentiate what needs immediate adult intervention versus something they can work together to solve. The program also emphasizes that students are strong enough and smart enough to solve these small problems-- I love how much it is repeated throughout the teacher guide. Large posters accompany the product and I appreciated the ongoing visual. They cover each of the nine choices: Go to another game Talk it out Share and take turns Ignore it Walk away Tell them to (please) stop Apologize Make a deal Wait and cool off As you can see, these are common strategies that many of the students have used before, often in combination with each other. What I was grateful for was the common, explicit instruction around all nine of these to create a system in the classroom, on the playground, in the lunchroom, and beyond. Plus, the explicit instruction can do a world of good for our students who struggle with these choices and social skills. Working together as a class on each of these in a systematic way can let every single student be "in it together" and have a common language and framework to use as a group. Program Materials Included in the Conflict Management set was everything you could ever need to launch this with your classroom. There is a very comprehensive Leader Guide filled with grade-specific lessons, extensions, reproducibles, parent and staff letters, and stories. Lessons are in-depth, but quick, and encourage you to engage in some meaningful conversations with your students. Take a peek at the Table of Contents HERE. A CD helps with making copies for your classroom. Two frog puppets are also included: Kelso and Lily. Since I teach third grade, I offer these up as an option, but not as a requirement. My daughter is in second grade, and she is still loving any and all activities with a puppet, so I'm glad they were included for the K-3 group. Additional cut-out characters can help bring the stories and role-plays to life. There are also some great lessons provided to help use the puppets with your class. Inside the Leader's Guide are the Willow Pond stories, but they are also compiled in a full-color book that would be perfect for your classroom library. The font is large and these stories could even be used as a shared reading opportunity. The provided DVD has an animated Kelso reviewing all of the choices and how they can be used in students' lives. And, most importantly, there are huge posters to display in your classroom, hallway, lunchroom, etc. You can see the difference between the K-3 version and the 4-5 version above. There are five of each and they are BIG at 24x36"! If you are teaching grades 4-5, the authors knew that Kelso the frog would not be as big of a hit with the older grades, and the lessons are adjusted accordingly. There are photos of real kids and much more in-depth scenarios and questions. Even "Share and take turns" has been removed and choices are divided up into verbal and nonverbal. It's a nice jump and will keep kids engaged even if they've been learning these choices since Kindergarten. One of the components to this program that I really love is the inclusion of every staff member and family member in the program. They realize that a lot of these small conflicts arise outside of a structured classroom environment, and this program is designed to work for just those scenarios. Included are reproducibles that the on-duty adult can use to support and/or congratulate those students who used the choices to solve a conflict. There are letters and activities for students to take home to help educate the parents and certificates of achievement for every student as they complete the program. There's even a song they can learn and maybe even sing schoolwide? The authors, Barbara Clark, PhD and Diane Hipp, CPS not only knew what they were doing when it came to conflict resolution, they knew how to implement it into a schoolwide system and make it doable for teachers and staff. There is no extra fluff to dig through, nor are there scripted lessons that kill meaningful learning. The lessons are packed with goodness and could easily give students new experiences with these choices for their entire elementary experience. Overall Thoughts I really like Kelso's Choice Conflict Management program and could see it becoming a part of a successful school's character education collection. It is practical, simple in its use but effective in its strategies, and is a one-stop-shop for an entire elementary school. I can imagine School Counselors loving this program as a way to help give all kids common language and skills about solving small problems in an empowering way. There are plenty of activities to keep this a yearlong and elementary career-long program for students. Especially with its extensions into 4th and 5th grade, I can see how kids of all ages can use these simple, but powerful choices to solve their ever-changing conflicts. With every adult in their daily sphere reiterating these choices, it gives students a solid framework to address small conflicts and feel empowered instead of frustrated. Find more information at: https://kelsoschoice.com. There are free downloads and loads of extra information for you to peruse. There is also information about a 30-day Free Trial, if you think you would like to experiment before you make the schoolwide decision. Have you used Kelso's Choice in your school? I would love to hear about your experiences with it in a schoolwide system!
So much Twitter love from my post about my walls this year. Y’all know how to make a girl feel good! I don’t have my lesson plans ready, and am not entirely sure what I’m doing on…
It's really hard to stop the worry spiral once those worry thoughts creep in. Help kids breath the cycle with these thought-stopping strategies for kids!
Anger Is My Friend: Rethinking Teen Anger Management The resources listed on this page accompany the book, Anger Is My Friend: Rethinking teen anger management, by Sam Ross. Watch the video to find out more and click here to read more about it. ANGER WORKBOOKS & WORKSHEETS Having a selection of worksheets
It's really hard to stop the worry spiral once those worry thoughts creep in. Help kids breath the cycle with these thought-stopping strategies for kids!
Just a quick post to share a school counseling documentation form I created to accompany a referral packet to the special education department. It's the week after conferences and spring break, so I'm a bit short on time. There is more I would like to share about documentation and how that plays into organizing and running an elementary counseling program with 1,700+ students and just little ol'me. (Okay, I'm not that little...but I'm getting off the subject.) For the sake of time management, I leave you with a free download of my counseling services documentation form for now. I will
Being stuck in automatic negative thoughts can be mentally exhausting. Learn these 6 steps to challenge and reframing thoughts in a positive way.
Our Challenging Negative Thoughts Worksheet PDF (printable / fillable / editable) was built for counselors, therapists, psychologists, psychiatrists, social workers and other medical professionals.
Teaching the premise of CBT is tough work with elementary students, especially those still developing their verbal skills. These stories and examples are an interactive way for students to make the connections between thoughts, feelings, and behaviors! Explain CBT through stories – a natural way for kiddos to learn about tricky things. They are also […]
I stumbled across this idea on Pinterest and thought it would be perfect for my third and fourth graders! I often hear complaints from students that although others "allow" them to play games at recess, they often do not "include" them in the game. For example, in football they are on the team but the ball is never passed to them. I used this as a springboard for discussion on what teamwork really looks like. The Cup Stack is a great activity to facilitate teamwork. Some groups are able to complete the task very quickly while other groups must keep trying and trying to complete the task successfully. It's hard not to give up when things get frustrating, and this is a valuable lesson for children to learn in a safe environment. All you need is cups, rubberbands, and string. I decided to put my students into groups of 6, so I tied 6 equally spaced strings (about 1-2 feet long) around a single rubberband. Each group was given this device and 6 cups. The challenge is for the group to build a pyramid out of the paper cups (3 on the bottom, 2 in the middle, 1 on the top - can be adjusted for more cups). Group members cannot touch the cups with their hands or any other part of their bodies, even if a cup falls over or on the floor. Each person holds onto one of the strings that are attached to the rubber band and they use this device to pick up the cups and place them on top of each other (by pulling the rubber band apart and then bringing it back together over the cups). Some groups took 2 minutes to accomplish their goal, some 10 minutes, and some never successfully built their tower. I had groups that finished early watch the remaining groups to add a little "pressure." Afterwards we debriefed with the following discussion questions: Was anyone frustrated at all during the activity? If so how was it handled? What did you learn about yourself or others? Why was teamwork so important for this activity? What is so hard about teamwork? What did you do today to contribute to the teamwork on your team? What are some skills needed to be good at teamwork? Are you every in a situation where you must use teamwork? Is this always easy for you? Why or why not? How can we use what we learned through this experience in situations outside the game? Check out Teamwork: Cup Stack Take 2!
A two-part exercise to help you name and operationalize your values.
