This is a booklet which could be used with a child who has lost a pet. It is the one thing that I have dealt with many times in my role as ELSA. It is probably the first time the child has dealt with death and they are understandably very upset. It is really important that you get permission from their family before working on bereavement with a child. Most parents are very happy for you to help their child come to terms with their loss. I have included ‘The Rainbow Bridge’ poem which is a lovely poem to discuss with the child. I know it gives me comfort with the loss of my pet cat.

Snakes is a game where children must make as many snakes as they can. The aim of the game is to read a card and if correct keep it. Make as many snakes as you can. The person who has the most full snakes at the end of the session is the winner.

Spaceships is a game where children must make as many spaceships as they can. The aim of the game is to read a card and if correct keep it. Make as many spaceships as you can. The person who has the most full spaceships at the end of the session is the winner.

Make a signpost for your reading area or for your library. Print out the post and make it as big as you like by either printing A3 or A4 and piecing the bits together. Print out as many signs as you like. There are 21 different ones to choose from.

Print on A4 or A3 . This is a brilliant resource for children with SEN or younger children who just need a bit more help to understand number.

This resource is ideal for working one to one with a child. The red light is the negative emotion such as anger, frustration, fear, worry, sad and upset. The green light is the positive emotion such as happy, chilled, content, ok, calm, and confident. The amber/yellow light is all the things the child can do to help get from the red light to the green light. These are the tools. Make sure you go through the resource with the child and decide which ‘tools’ they need to use or try. Print and laminate this resource, Cut out the cards and keep in a little zip folder, Use either velcro or blu tak to stick the cards onto the base board. If you need the cards to be bigger just print all of it onto A3 paper and laminate.

Activities consist of: Creating a superpower to help people Creating a superhero name Designing your superhero How it makes you feel to use your superpowers to help someone Comparing your favourite superhero to yourself – same and different The Superhero emotion characters have all been drawn by myself.

The crafts are very simple. It is the process that is important. Children relax when they are working on a craft and to be honest I do not know of a child who does not enjoy crafts especially when it is with someone who is interested in them and interested in what they say. They will open up to you and talk freely whilst enjoying themselves. These activities are also perfect for an ELSA or Teaching assistant who has to do a one off session with a child or who has to work reactively to a situation. Also can be used for whole class activities at Christmas time. When children succeed in an activity then their self efficacy increases. They begin to believe in themselves. Along with your encouragement and praise they will begin to have a ‘can do’ attitude. It takes time but if anyone ever says to you that what you are doing is just ‘crafting and having fun’ WHAT are they learning? You can tell them. The resource includes: Card crafts (20 activities) Templates (17 templates or resources) Front cover, contents sheet

This is a game aimed at fussy eaters. It encourages them in small steps to eat something new.

Here are some emotion faces based on Christmas characters. This resource can be used in many different ways. Laminate the ‘face sheet’ and then laminate all the expression and vocabulary cards. Cut out the expression and vocabulary cards. Use a blob of bluetac to stick items onto the face. Add a whiteboard pen, a mirror and some playdough to extend the use of this resource. All images have been drawn by myself.

6 Monster Character posters There are six monsters in the pack with key vocabulary. There is a monster for each basic emotion- happy, sad, angry, scared, surprised and disgusted. Each monster is a character. We have: Angry Adam Disgusted Doug Happy Hannah Sad Simon Scared Sophie Surprised Sam Each character is displayed on one page which can then be printed as A3 or A4 to create your display. The character is asking ���How do you feel today?’ Alongside the monster is some key vocabulary. It is so important for children to learn other emotion words too so they can express their feelings. 6 Monster character cards There are also some smaller cards (2 per page) which you can print as A4 or A3 depending on how big you want your cards to be. Each monster is holding a card for the child to write or draw on. The idea is that the child can choose which monster they feel like. They can then write or draw why they feel like that. 7 Banners There are also 7 banners to choose from. Each one having a different colour so you can choose the colour you would like to use. These are in PDF format so to print as a banner you will need to change the settings. Everyone’s printer is different so it is difficult to give instructions but on my computer I choose poster print, and reduce the percentage to 75%. This prints over 3 pages which you can then stick together to form your banner. Obviously you could print it bigger or smaller by changing your settings. 6 emotion cards Each character on a separate card. (4 per page). Writing paper for each character (write your own title/question) Drawing paper for each character (write your own title/question) Speech bubble, thinking bubble and comic strip This is a display and resource pack but it doesn’t stop just at displays. These cards could be used as a teaching tool too: You could do a circle time each week concentrating on one character. All emotions work could be on that one character for the week. Children could have a go at creating their own characters for each emotion. Use the drawing paper included in the pack. Write your own scenarios on the monster cards to help children relate to the emotion. Make up stories of why ‘Doug is disgusted’ or ‘Adam is angry’. Use the writing paper included in the pack. Draw comic strips showing why ‘Sophie is scared’. (A comic strip is included in the pack). Use to model emotional regulation. Tell the children ‘I feel like Angry Adam today because…’ What should I do about that? How can I calm down? There are lots of activities you can do with this pack. Perfect for early years or SEN.

he crafts are very simple. It is the process that is important. Children relax when they are working on a craft and to be honest I do not know of a child who does not enjoy crafts especially when it is with someone who is interested in them and interested in what they say. They will open up to you and talk freely whilst enjoying themselves. These activities are also perfect for an ELSA or Teaching assistant who has to do a one off session with a child or who has to work reactively to a situation. When children succeed in an activity then their self efficacy increases. They begin to believe in themselves. Along with your encouragement and praise they will begin to have a ‘can do’ attitude. It takes time but if anyone ever says to you that what you are doing is just ‘crafting and having fun’ WHAT are they learning? You can tell them. The resource includes: Card crafts (20 activities) Templates (13 templates or resources) Front cover, contents sheet

The Mind Monsters Fan Pack is a perfect resource for especially young children to identify their feelings. It is based on the 6 basic emotions of happy, sad, angry, scared, disgusted and surprised. It is also suitable for children with SEN and even older children will love the characters. There are 3 levels of fans. The first one just shows the monster on its own for children to relate to the face and facial expression. The second one shows the name of the Monster – Angry Adam, Sad Simon, Surprised Sam, Happy Hannah, Scared Sophie and Disgusted Doug. This will help children to label the emotion by the name and the expression. The third level has a scale of 1-5 for children to begin to scale their emotions. How sad are they? Are they a tiny bit sad or very very sad? There are more Mind Monster resources, please check my store.

A powerpoint show, PDF and activities around teaching children the difference between true and false to give them an understanding on telling lies.

This is a Christmas wishes stocking booklet. Pupils can either choose a mindful colouring version or they can choose a coloured version. The aim of the activity is mindfulness and thinking about Christmas wishes. Once the stocking is coloured, cut out and folded, pupils can write or draw their wishes inside the stocking. This would make a fab display,

This is an idea for an ELSA Christmas advent calendar and would be a fab activity for groups of children or your one to one children. Each child can colour one or two of the booklets. Some of them require faces drawing on first. They can just colour the image or they can colour the image and background. Depends how much time you have. There are 24 little foldable books. The child can colour the front of one of the books and then write or draw something inside. The pupil needs to understand that what they write or draw could be seen by anyone so they are writing for an audience. What could they write? The purpose of this advent calendar is some quiet mindful time and of course positivity. This activity is ideal for that last week in November, preparing for the 1st of December. Ideas for what you could work on: A Christmas memory Something you are grateful for An act of kindness Positive quotes about Christmas Self care and ways to look after yourself Positive characteristics Relaxing moments Positive affirmations A gift to give someone A joke or something to make you smile Compliments Once all the pieces have been coloured you can use the enclosed A3 sheet to stick the numbers on at random and close each book with a bit of bluetak. You can then use it as an advent calendar. Everyone has been involved and pupils are writing things for others to see so they need to think carefully what message they want to convey. Of course if you want to make it very simple, they could just draw a Christmas picture inside if they want to.

This isolation diary booklet for children will help nurture wellbeing. They may have to stay at home for 14 days to isolate after having contact with a positive Covid case. There are 10 daily challenges but these don’t take long to do. It is a matter of doing a bit of colouring, writing a word or number. If they can’t do them all then that is fine but the more they do the more likely they will be fully occupied on nurturing their wellbeing. There are a couple of differentiated pages so this is suitable for all age groups.

Here are some positivity cards. There are 36 cards in the download. Print these out and cut them out and they could be used in lots of ways from discussions at circle time to a child picking one out of a jar and discussing.

These breathing exercise wheels are great as a prompt for trying different breathing techniques when feeling anxious. Pupils can use their favourite or try different ones.

This is a bee display pack with positive messages on. Included in the pack: 31 Hexagons with messages and blanks for your own messages A3 Bee for cutting out Clouds Large flowers 2 Banners One hive I would suggest a pale bluish background if you can so the yellow stands out. This can be made to look like the sky. The flowers could be cut out and put around the bottom or make a border of them by printing them smaller.