Focus Activities for Kids: Keeping Focus
This session includes focus activities for kids, helping students notice when their attention drifts and find small ways to bring it back. Through a discussion, a short activity where they choose a strategy that fits a tricky moment, and a look at ideas like focus and brain breaks, they practice adjusting the space around them and giving their brain a rest. The takeaway is a set of options they can reach for when a task feels hard to stick with.
Extension activity
- Skill
- Self-Regulation
- Goal
- Executive Functioning
- Grade level
- Elementary School
Get everything you need to teach the skill
These materials are part of a no-prep session designed by our clinical team, with all the structure, scaffolding, and support you need to teach included.
Engaging materials
Video lessonKeeping Focus
Today’s lesson is on how to help keep ourselves focused. How can being distracted negatively affect you?
- Extension activity
Keeping Focus Reflect
In this reflect-and-sketch activity, students draw what a clear, distraction-free space looks like to practice identifying what helps them focus best.
Plus everything you need to teach them
Warm-up
- Video: Hot Cocoa Breathing2:05
- Video: Daily Intention2:59
- Video: Body Squeeze2:12
Session Opener
Guiding Question: How can a person stay focused?
Practice
- Discussion Question
- Role-Play Activity
- Mini Game
How to use it with your students
- 1Watch Play the video lesson so students see the skill in action.
- 2Practice Try the skill together with a discussion prompt, role-play, or mini game.
- 3Extend Use the extension activity to help students carry the skill further.
What's Covered
In this lesson, students learned how to notice their own focus by asking themselves if they felt alert or distracted. They practiced naming what pulls their attention away and choosing a strategy that helps, like taking a short break or clearing their space.
Key Terms
- Focus
- Focus means keeping your brain on your work or what the class is doing. When your mind moves to something else, you can notice and bring it back to what's happening right now.
- Brain Break
- A short pause where you move your body or focus on one calm thing to wake up a tired brain or settle a busy one. It helps you get your focus back so you can pay attention again.
Sample IEP Goal This Session Supports
-
Executive Functioning
Given a multi-step task, learner will use at least one self-selected organizational strategy (e.g., visual planner, breaking the task into steps, visual timer) to initiate and work through the task with decreasing adult support in 4 out of 5 opportunities independently/given X prompt(s).
Send this tip home to support generalization
At home or in the classroom, when a student seems to be drifting from a task, try asking them what would help them focus right now. Naming the change themselves makes the strategy easier to use next time.
Ready to teach Keeping Focus?
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More Self-Regulation Activities
Frequently asked questions
Is this intervention free?
Yes, this ready-to-teach session on Keeping Focus is free. You can access this intervention free for 14 days through the Everyday Speech Session Library. Every user gets three free sessions, but you can get more or extend your access by sharing the Session Library with friends and colleagues.
What ages is this for?
These materials are designed for elementary school students.
What's included?
You'll get access to your choice of warm-up videos, a session opener, a core material on Keeping Focus, three practice prompts, and an extension activity, Keeping Focus Reflect.
What skill does this intervention teach?
This ready-to-teach session is on self-regulation - more specifically, executive functioning.
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