Resources

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The 4-7-8 breathing technique is a simple but effective breathing exercise used to promote relaxation. It's often practiced to help manage stress, anxiety, and improve sleep.

5 Things is a Mindfulness strategy that can connect students to their senses, centering the body and mind.

The Iceberg worksheet helps give students a visual on what may be happening under the surface when they feel angry.

Behavior & the Brain highlights parts of the brain and their respective function.

These cards promote conversations about being mindful throughout life.

For use with the breathing board resources

The Breathing Board handout provides an activity for youth to de-escalate. Print each board or all of the boards to support the student.

Butterfly Breathing encourages students to feel relaxed and free. Use this strategy to encourage students to self-regulate when they feel stressed, anxious, or upset.

This icon-focused plan encourages students of all abilities to identify emotions and the tools to return to a regulated state. This plan provides a template for adults to engage students in discussions about different feelings and ways to regulate unwanted or uncomfortable emotions.

This resource provides adults with observable signs of dysregulation and strategies to regain student focus.

Color Breathing is a visual strategy that can be quickly learned. This poster can help remind students to use their breathing as a simple, stress-reducing activity.

This document outlines the use of physical restraint and timeout in schools, emphasizing their role in crisis intervention when a student poses an imminent danger. It highlights the importance of monitoring for signs of distress, recognizing contraindications, and ensuring that these interventions are only used when necessary to protect student safety while minimizing risks and unintended harm.

This resource can help facilitate morning meeting conversations, enhance social-emotional learning, or practice peer social skills.

Coloring can help engage the brain without a lot of effort. When a student cannot focus,
coloring is a re-connection strategy.

The Cup of Calm helps students engage different senses to promote self-regulation.

These are strategies to help when attempting to de-escalate dangerous behaviors.

Distract Your Mind Trace A Line is a strategy to actively refocus student attention from current stressors toward a busy activity requiring active motor skill coordination.

Feather breathing is a relaxation technique that encourages deep, slow breathing to promote relaxation and reduce stress.

Learning how to connect emotional events to what’s going on in the body gives students a personal resource to turn to when they are not sure what they're feeling. Feelings Bookmarks provide students with visual prompts to clearly identify the emotions they experience and example strategies for regulation.

Figure 8 is a breathing strategy that can help students relax when they feel anxious or dysregulated.

'Getting it Together!' is a student-focused tool to guide thoughts following a problem with staff or a peer that may require a restorative conversation to resolve the issue and repair the school community.

The Growing Your…provides tips on what to say or do to facilitate growth in these areas.

The Growing Your…provides tips on what to say or do to facilitate growth in these areas.

The Growing Your…provides tips on what to say or do to facilitate growth in these areas.

The Growing Your…provides tips on what to say or do to facilitate growth in these areas.

Hand Breathing allows students to visually follow how their body is engaged when using relaxing breathing strategies.

Students may not be able to identify what they need to regulate when upset. This resource provides students with ideas of ways to regulate before becoming dysregulated. Staff then keep this resource available as a future reference for intervention.

This regulation visual is a reminder that children often need help with regulation before they will ever be able to reason.

This visual will give educators a quick set of intervention tips for supporting a struggling student.

Maze breathing is a technique that helps manage stress and calm the mind.

Mindfulness is being fully aware of the moment-by-moment thoughts/feelings/actions in oneself. Teaching students mindfulness, a relaxation technique, enables them to have a positive mindset.

Children may be unable to identify what they need to regulate when upset. This resource asks parents/guardians to supply ideas for interventions to assist staff in supporting their child's regulation. Staff then keep this completed resource for future reference.

This tool allows students to review what will happen in their restorative circle before it begins. Providing advanced notice of what to expect and coaching socially appropriate responses helps reduce anxiety for some students.

My Circle Rules offers three different versions, allowing staff to choose a tool that fits the needs of their students for learning restorative circle rules.

This packet is a social-emotional learning journal. Journal prompts are based on the Social Emotional Learning Standards for the State of Illinois.

Helping students identify the size of their worry can aid in expressing to others what is happening in their world.

Students struggling with anxiety are often anxious about events in life that are out of their control. This activity allows students to articulate what's within their power and what's not so they understand their locus of control.

This tool will assist a student in identifying sensations within their memories, emotions, and body. As a
student begins to recognize what is happening within their body, they can act on regulating those sensations or emotions. It gives students the visual opportunity to write in a sensation and connect it to experiences.

This activity has been created for students to write a note to someone who makes them feel safe.

Progressive muscle relaxation is a technique that involves tensing and relaxing specific muscle groups to release physical tension. It's a helpful method for teens dealing with stress, anxiety, or even physical discomfort.

This icon-focused plan encourages students of all abilities to identify emotions and tools to return to a regulated state.

This resource is a strategy to help students practice positive self-talk.

The Sensation poster is a visual for helping students grow their sensation vocabulary list.

This handout will give staff a snapshot of what students may be experiencing and feeling based on observed behaviors.

The Signs of Distress handout provides school staff with examples of physical signs that may indicate a student is in distress.

This regulation strategy involves a sequence of physical movements paired with controlled breathing to help calm the body and mind. Focusing on the superhero imagery and mindful breathing promotes relaxation and stress relief.

Supporting Your Family is specifically written to help know what to do when a family has a child
experiencing trauma and grief.

This document has six apps that teens can download that will help with coping and emotional regulation.

The Feelings Packet is a set of resources for students functioning at the 3-9 year old range. Included are a feelings compass, feelings scale, student dictionary, teacher definitions, drawing prompts, writing prompts, and cards differentiated at three different levels. Use this packet to help build an emotional vocabulary with your students.

Thinks Sheets are reflective activities designed to help students focus on their body sensations that occurred during a time of dysregulation. The activity helps a student to identify sensations and feelings they may have experienced and helps to identify strategies for self-regulation when experiencing similar sensations in the future.

This resource outlines strategies to support a child who has experienced trauma.

Visual Pacing Strips are flexible tools that allow adults to control the visual progression of time-based on student response or age and vary accordingly. They are effective for class-wide application and as a layer of additional support for individual students.

The When I Feel... I Can Try... strategy offers images for students to focus on to help re-frame negative thoughts into positive feelings.

The Window of Tolerance visual will remind educators how a student that has experienced trauma may have less tolerance than a student who has not experienced trauma.