In this blog post, we will explore the importance of helping PreK students recognize stress and learn calming strategies. We will discuss a no-prep activity for educators to use, provide discussion questions to stimulate further conversations, and mention related skills that students can benefit from. Finally, we will encourage users to sign up for free samples of the discussed skill and others at Everyday Speech.

Introduction

Stress is a natural part of life, and even young children can experience it. As educators, it’s essential to teach PreK students to recognize when they are feeling stressed and provide them with strategies to calm down. By doing so, we can help them develop healthy coping mechanisms that will serve them well throughout their lives.

No-Prep Activity: The Stress Balloon

This activity requires no preparation or materials and can be easily incorporated into any classroom setting. The goal of the Stress Balloon activity is to help students visualize their stress and learn how to release it.

1. Ask the students to sit in a circle.
2. Explain that sometimes, we can feel stressed or nervous when we have a problem that’s hard to solve.
3. Ask them to imagine that they’re holding a balloon in their hands.
4. Next, instruct the students to think about something that makes them feel stressed or nervous, and imagine that feeling filling up the balloon.
5. Once their balloon is full of stress, guide them through a calming strategy, such as taking deep breaths or counting to ten.
6. As they use the calming strategy, have them imagine the stress leaving the balloon, making it smaller and smaller until it disappears.
7. Finish by discussing how they felt during the activity and how they can use this strategy when they feel stressed in the future.

Discussion Questions

Use these questions to stimulate further discussions about stress and calming strategies:

1. How did it feel to imagine your stress inside the balloon? Did it help you recognize when you’re feeling stressed?
2. What are some other calming strategies you can think of that might help when you’re feeling stressed?
3. How can you tell when someone else is feeling stressed? What can you do to help them?
4. Why is it important to learn how to recognize and handle stress at a young age?
5. Can you think of a situation when you felt stressed? How did you handle it?

Related Skills

Teaching students to recognize stress and learn calming strategies is just one aspect of social-emotional learning. Other related skills that can benefit PreK students include:

• Emotion recognition: Understanding and identifying their own emotions and those of others.
• Active listening: Paying attention to what others are saying and showing empathy.
• Problem-solving: Developing strategies to resolve conflicts and overcome challenges.
• Self-regulation: Learning how to manage strong emotions and impulses in a healthy way.

Next Steps

Helping PreK students recognize stress and learn calming strategies is an essential component of their social-emotional development. By incorporating activities like the Stress Balloon into the classroom, educators can equip students with the tools they need to handle stress in a healthy way.

To access more resources and activities related to this skill and others, sign up for free samples at Everyday Speech. Equip your students with the skills they need for a successful and emotionally healthy future.