Safe and Healthy Schools Consultant, Heather Berry, shares resources from School Mental Health Ontario for engaging in conversations with students about mental health and handling stress through four square breathing.

Classroom Conversation Starters

Four Square Breathing

Safe and Healthy Schools Consultant, Heather Berry, shares resources from jack.org on muscle relaxation exercises.

Muscle Relaxation from Jack.org

Safe and Healthy Schools Consultant, Heather Berry, shares resources from jack.org on negative thought changing strategies.

Thought Changing Strategies from Jack.org

Safe and Healthy Schools Consultant, Heather Berry, shares the four finger affirmations strategy from School Mental Health Ontario.

Four Finger Affirmations

This video focuses on the great meditation app and website that is youthful, dynamic, engaging, and most of all very helpful: Headspace. Heather's kids use it; her friends' kids love it and it is almost going to take over her own old, hardcopy daily meditation book; almost. Also, Headspace Guide to Meditation is a new show now streaming on Netflix - that's how popular it is!

“Creating caring connections and trust with your learners centres on helping students to know that they matter – that their uniqueness is celebrated, and voice is heard. Students learn best when they feel safe, valued and certain that they belong.”(School Mental Health Ontario) As you begin a new course, consider using these 5 pre-made lesson plans on Social Emotional Learning to help your students feel safe, valued, and that they belong. Using them may make you feel good too!

The First 10 Days and Beyond

School Mental Health Ontario

Heather Berry recommends these amazing SEL resources that can help us as we begin a new quadmester and as we teacher at a distance.

• School Mental Health Ontario - The First 10 Days & Beyond

• 30+Ways to Incorporate SEL Suring Distance Learning

• https://www.wrdsb.ca/our-schools/health-and-wellness/caring-coping-connecting/january-2021-self-compassion/

Are you ready to take your students on a field trip?

Like everything else these days, or course it is virtual - but you will meet experts in the field of Mental Health who will give you and your students a wellness boost.

There are 6 Virtual Field Trips, one released per month, that will take you til the end of the school year.

Heather Berry would love to hear how you're implementing these opportunities.

Resource Link: Secondary Virtual Field Trip #1

Wellness Booster adds to our coping toolkit for stress and anxiety. School Mental Health Ontario has a great resource, Supporting Minds, that talks about some signs to look for in ourselves and our students and some strategies to quell anxious feelings. Tapping is one of many strategies. Watch Wellness Booster #10 to learn more and always remember to give your students options when doing any kind of mindfulness work.

This virtual field trip (from School Mental Health Ontario and OPHEA) on muscle relaxation strategies is the second in a series of six lessons to support the development of stress management and healthy coping skills. Each lesson has three parts: a minds-on activity, a pre-recorded virtual field trip session that introduces breathing strategies, and a consolidation activity. Hope you and your students can give it a try.

Muscle Relaxation Strategies

Heather Berry wanted to share this Forest Walk Meditation (under Stress Management and Coping from SMHO). This is a great way to take a break in class, your day or maybe try it with your students before an assessment. PaRx describes all the benefits of nature. We know that our students are not getting out enough and perhaps visualizing being in nature might help to simulate the feelings of the real experience. An adaptation is to simply play the audio of the video and put up your favourite picture of a forest for the students to see before your start. You can even read it yourself.

This field trip focuses on visualization activities and how this strategy can help us manage stress. It is important to recognize how our body feels, while noticing and acknowledging our feelings. Guided imagery provides an opportunity to shift our focus away from worries and distractions. It can help us relax when we visualize an image that promotes feelings of calm.

Field Trip Lesson Plan

Five days of ready to use activities to connect, calm and begin your day. We hope they will provide both you and your students an opportunity to explore strategies that they can use when feeling stressed or overwhelmed. Each of us is unique and strategies that work for some might not work for others, and that is okay. Try a new activity each day.