This resource contains two documents from the SK Ministry of Education: Priority Action Plan - contains crucial (foundational) outcomes for literacy and numeracy for Grades 1-9.   Reconnect - provides suggestions and other considerations for reconnecting during the pandemic and disrupted learning. 

Explore and understand the mental health issues that affect young people with these online courses from FutureLearn.

Worry and Rumination

While worrying and feeling nervous is something that all human beings experience, as with many things in life, too much of something may not be good for you. Normal anxiety can become a problem when it is excessive, feels uncontrollable, is experienced as intrusive in your life, is persistent (seeming to always be around), and causes you significant distress, or impairs your ability to go about your day-to-day life. This is when normal anxiety becomes generalised anxiety disorder.
One of the important features of generalised anxiety is that the worry and anxiety is spread across a number of different areas such as health, work, interpersonal relationships, finances, and so on. This makes it different from other anxiety problems, such as social anxiety or phobias, where nervousness and worrying are more specific to particular situations.

**Site includes workbook, worksheets and information sheets for download.

This site is a list of the Community Mental Health and Addictions Services in the province of Saskatchewan organized by Health Region.

It is important to think about all of the things in our life that we can be grateful for. So often we tend to focus on the negative things in our life and forget about all the blessings we have each and every day. Our blessings do not need to be huge to make us appreciate our lives. They can be as small as: a smile from someone, hot chocolate, our pet greeting us at the door, a cozy blanket, a visit from a friend.
Focusing on the good things we have in our life, instead of the challenges we face, can change our perspective to being more positive. When we have a positive outlook on life, life is automatically better!
Some things we can do to help us see the positives in our life are:
- Write in a Gratitude Journal - Take a few minutes each day to write down 4 or 5 good things about your day.
- Write a letter - Think about someone who is important in your life. Write down all of the things that you appreciate about them. Then deliver the letter to that person and enjoy their reaction.
- Visit Someone you Appreciate – Spend some time with someone you like and let them know all the reasons why you like them.
- Use Your Manners – Being polite to others by saying “Thank you,” “Sorry,” “Your welcome” or “That was nice of you” can drastically change how others feel about you, and thus make you feel better about yourself. Being kind to others is as important as being kind to ourselves.
- Take a Gratitude Walk – Go for a walk and make a special effort to appreciate everything you see, hear, smell, taste and touch.

The following is a journal for gratitude. It can be printed off for students to fill out. It includes gratitude, happiness, being grateful, etc.

Give your eyes a break with this audio-only Digital Wellness Break. Follow along as teacher Stephanie's voice guides you step-by-step through "Tense and Release," a mind-body-breath integration that's designed for children and effective for all ages.

TODAY’S MINDFUL MOVEMENT
🦦 TENSE AND RELEASE 🦦

“It’s the end of a very long day. Back-to-back-to-back meetings. You sign-off from work, gather your belongings, rush out the door... only to get stuck in traffic. Tension rises.

A busy lifestyle with no time to relax can lead to frustration, tension, and chronic stress.

Making time in our busy days to mindfully unwind can help. Tense and Release is one of our favorite relaxation exercises to do just this. By consciously tensing and releasing our bodies, we are able to tune out what is going on outside and tune in to what’s going on inside. And in tune, consciously let go of the tension and stress we carry.

This audio-only relaxation will allow you to return to a state of balance. Just hit 'play' and give your eyes a rest for the next four minutes.” (Yoga Ed.)

Professor Sonja Lyubomirsky - one of the world's leading Positive Psychology experts - shares the latest insights from her ground-breaking work on happiness....

She focuses on three main habits in this webinar...
1. Gratitude
2. Acts of Kindness
3. Social interactions and connections

Healthline is a great A-to-Z resource for various physical and mental health issues, emphasizing expert content with genuine caring. And you don't need to be under the weather to benefit from this website.

In addition to providing timely, modern health advice, Healthline is a beautifully presented and information-packed resource for your overall health and wellness. At Healthline, you'll find nutritious recipes, workout ideas, fitness and eating tips, and the latest in health news.

The purpose of us feeling anxiety in our bodies is so that we will ‘DO SOMETHING’ to try to eliminate the event, situation or thing that we are worried about. This is a primitive and basic survival instinct that we still have deeply embedded in our brains. The problem is…we don’t need to run away from saber tooth tigers anymore!

However, instead of having the idea of “I need to get rid of this feeling” we need to change it to “whatever is happening right at this moment, I CAN HANDLE that.”

What we need to do is learn about anxiety and how it works in our bodies and then break anxiety down into small pieces, and take it step by step. It may start with learning about how anxiety works and feels in our bodies; the sensations we get from anxiety. Starting with what happens in our brain and body when we are anxious. Then we need to learn what we can do with those sensations to lessen them and our anxiety. Then we work on our anxious thoughts and work to change the dialogue we have in our heads about anxiety. Essentially we break anxiety down into small chewable bites. This is in order to give you some success.

CoordiKids is happy to offer the series of downloadable tools for teachers: The How Do You Feel? Curriculum for teaching self-regulation to children.

How Do You Feel? is a curriculum designed for elementary school teachers. The kit is geared toward helping children ranging in ages from 4-12.

What’s Included: The How Do You Feel? Curriculum from CoordiKids
- The “How Do You Feel?” Chart
- 6 Lesson Plans
- Visual Aids
- Worksheets
- And more!

By clicking on the "Home" tab, you will also find:
- Home Course
- Preschool Course
- Classroom Brain Break Course
- Homeschool Brain Break Course
- Master Classes
- Starter Packs (Sensory Processing and Dyspraxia)

I Am Stronger is an initiative designed to stop the activities of bullying and cyber-bullying. This is done through awareness and education around cyber safety, the effects of bullying, and supporting youth-led initiatives.

I Am Stronger believes that the answers to solving the issues of bullying and cyber-bullying lie in the hearts and minds of those who experience it on a daily basis - the youth of today.

The Ministry of Education has partnered up with I Am Stronger to provide small grants of up to $1000 for youth-led initiatives to adress bullying and cyber-bullying within the province of Saskatchewan. The goal is to empower youth to take their ideas and turn them into positive action that can influence social change in schools, communities and online. The grant provides youth the opportunity to collaborate with others to find solutions to stop bullying, and then turn their ideas into action while inspiring others to do the same. We believe that together we can all make a difference.

The Indigenous Wellness Framework Reference Guide stems from Honouring Our Strengths: Culture as Intervention in Addictions Treatment, a three-year study funded by the Canadian Institutes of Health Research. Led by a partnership between the Assembly of First Nations, Centre for Addiction and Mental Health, National Native Addictions Partnership Foundation and the University of Saskatchewan, the study examined the strengths of First Nations culture in drug and alcohol treatment.

Review these news articles and infographics on the impact and connection between financial wellness and physical and mental health. Students can reflect on the impact of financial stress and how it affects everything- physical, mental health and even workplace performance. The statistics in the news arcticles on financial stress are very challenging right now for Canadians, so students could read these articles and look for ways to change these statistics going forward for their generation.

Pixar's "Inside Out" is a movie that's all about feelings, and this makes it perfect for sparking discussions with kids about social and emotional learning. Since the central characters all embody a different emotion, students learn to see parts of themselves or their experiences in each character.

As we know, watching a movie can involve way more than just watching. Use the "Inside Out Movie Guide" (with lesson materials) to explore how joy and sadness can come together and make sense of the mess of our emotions.

(Grades 3–6)

***Sun West teachers can access the movie Inside Out using ACF Streaming.

This toolkit has been designed to promote positive mental health practices and perspectives within the school environment. The toolkit was developed for the Pan- Canadian Joint Consortium for School Health by Dr. Patricia Peterson and Dr. Bill Morrison of the University of New Brunswick. The JCSH wishes to acknowledge the many professionals from each Canadian province and territory who provided assistance by participating as key informants and reviewers.
In the second edition of the Positive Mental Health Toolkit, the resource has been divided into a series of online modules, presenting information and materials that are manageable and user friendly. It is not necessary that you implement all modules of the PMH Toolkit or that you complete them in the sequence they are presented. We encourage you to take the time to explore each module and its written and video components. The toolkit has been updated to reflect recent Canadian research, and to identify promising practices occurring in diverse contexts across the country. In addition, the PMH Toolkit provides a means of measuring positive mental health practices, with results generating a series of individualized strategies for enhancing healthy school environments for students, educators and staff members. These assessment measures can be used in conjunction with the JCSH Healthy School Planner as a means of evaluating overall school environments.

Jack.org is a Canadian charity committed to providing mental health supports and resources. The website includes opportunities for guest speakers (both virtual and in-person) and a wide range of resources, including specific Indigenous mental health resources. There are also several resource hubs designed for youth. This website can be used to support curriculums that include mental health topics.

This resource was created by Sun West School Division teachers to support integrating allareas of wellness in the daily lives of our students to enhance their well-being.This resource includes activities for each domain of wellness: Physical, Mental, Emotional, Spiritual, and Social. The activities are arranged by month, but feel free to adapt the order to your classroom's needs. Students can work on these projects independently, with their families, or as a class.The resource includes connections to learning outcomes for the Grade K-2 curriculum including the Treaty Education Outcomes.We have included a focus on goal setting and reflection in order to meet ELA Assess & Reflect outcomes, as well as the Health Decision-Making and Action Planning outcomes.