Preschool Activities that Meet Social Emotional Standards

It's Wednesday, which means it's time for some activities aligned to a specific standard.  This is the Third week of this feature, and we're still on social emotional standards. (The Standards that I use every day, and am most comfortable with are Ohio's Early Learning Development Standards - you can review them here, however I've found that even if your State's standards differ, many of these activities can still be aligned similarly). Here we go!

Domain: Social Emotional Development
Strand: Self
Topic: Self-Regulation

Ahhh Self-Regulation.  Teaching a class full of preschoolers to regulate and manage their feelings and impulses, trying to get little ones to think about the consequences of their actions and behaviors.  Do we really need to put this on the lesson plan? Don't we do this all day long, every single day of forever? That's probably why this is a hard standard to plan activities for, we do it so often, and so naturally, that when we have to sit down and actually think about it, it has the tendency to stump us.  I mean really, most of the adults I know can't regulate their impulses (I know I have trouble, especially when their are baked goods involved), so how do we teach three and four year olds to do it?

Here are a few activities that might help:

Create a "Calm Down Space" from Prek and K sharing 

Use a stuffed turtle (like Tucker) to remind kids to "tuck" in to themselves as they calm down.  From 2 Care 2 Teach 4 Kids

Yoga helps children regulate their bodies while still maintaining a level of physical activity. From Creekside Learning

Talk about what causes feelings with a "Jar full of Feelings" From Mosswood Connections. 

Visual cues for dealing with emotions from Erin Holleran

 Have students help you make a class set of "Cool Down Cubes." From Crafty Counselor Chick

Hopefully these ideas will be great additions to your emotional-regulation arsenal! I would love to hear any other suggestions, leave them in the comments!