In need of a resource for teaching self-regulation to your preschoolers? Look no further, download our free preschool self-regulation skills worksheet!
Teaching Self-Regulation to Preschool Students
You can successfully teach an important self-regulation skill, staying calm, using Everyday Speech’s free preschool self-regulation skills material! This material focuses on the concept of the ‘Staying Calm’, or the ability to self-soothe. This skill opens cognitive channels for clear thinking and apt decision-making. Maintaining composure socially when experiencing overwhelming emotions or situations allows for more joy and social opportunities while fostering the right frame of mind for executive functioning skills like problem solving!
Lesson Plan – Using Your Free Self-Regulation Skills Material
1. Introduce the ‘Staying Calm’ Skill
Before using our free self-regulation skills material with your preschooler or kindergartener, introduce the important concept of our ability to use calming strategies in order to stay calm when we experience big emotions. The Everyday Speech skill of Staying Calm provides students with a variety of self-regulation and calming strategies they can choose from and use. Review these strategies and encourage your student to pick 2-3 strategies they would like to use and keep in their toolkit!
2. Practice Using the Calming Strategies
Provide your student with the opportunity to use this self-regulation skill by giving them with the opportunity to practice the 2-3 calming strategies they selected. These strategies could include counting to ten, seeking help from an adult, box breathing, belly breathing, squeezing your fists, or taking a break.
3. Use Our Free Preschool Self-Regulation Skills Material
Our free preschool self-regulation material called My Calming Toolbox provides your students with the opportunity to continue to explore and practice different calm-down strategies by picking 3 ‘tools’ to add to their toolbox that work best for them to manage feelings of anger, frustration, or anxiety. Students will select their tools, cut them out, staple them together, and put them in their self-regulation “toolbox” to reference whenever they need to calm down!
Sample Preschool Self-Regulation Skills Video:
This sample preschool video on belly breathing below is a great enhancement to this self-regulation lesson! Everyday Speech provides real life scenarios as age appropriate actors model new skills. We offer a 30 day free trial for all of our social skills materials!
