This article explains 6 ways to use breathing for stress relief and mental wellness.

"Learning skills to support our mental health early in life can provide significant benefits to our physical, emotional, and social growth for life. For example, for children to choose calm in times of stress, they first need the opportunity to experience calm and practice arriving at a calm state.

All of the tools you find in this toolkit help cultivate calm, mental health, and overall well being. In this resource, learn 9 yoga and mindfulness practices for mental health that are suitable for a variety of settings and time frames: each tool may be as brief as 1 minute or expanded as needed.

Use the tools individually or all together to tailor your own experience, now and for the long term."

*Counting Breath
*Core Breath
*Yoga Poses at Desk
*Brain Break
*Relaxation

You will need to share your email to download the guide.

Sesame Street's newest human resident, Mando (introduced in the fall of 2013), narrates while kids and a blue monster together tackle everyday frustrations -- like struggling to tie shoes, dealing with separation anxiety, taking turns, and going to bed -- and learn how to deal with them. Students must work through one problem before unlocking the next. Animated video clips show the blue monster's problem, then kids tap his belly to help him breathe deeply and calm down. When the monster is calm, students tap thought bubbles, which produces three possible strategies. Students get to choose which strategy the monster will try and then see him do it in another animated video clip. The technique of breathing, thinking, and doing is reinforced throughout.

This is a free app available from: (copy and paste URL into your browser)
Apple - https://apps.apple.com/us/app/id721853597?ign-mpt=uo%3D4
Google Play - https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=air.com.sesameworkshop.ResilienceThinkBreathDo
Amazon - https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00H56X50O?tag=comsenmed07-20

There are a series of videos for movement, brain breaks, yoga, and energizing breaks with younger kids!

There are videos for:
Movement & Yoga
Mindfulness
Relaxation
Energy
Brain Breaks
Dancing

Students have access to a number of courses in the area of:

*Social & Emotional Learning
*Financial Education
*Health & Wellness
*College & Career Readiness
*Early Learning

NEW courses are being added regularly.

ECE- K-3
Word Force
Healthier Me Jr
Compassion Project

Elementary/Middle 4-8
Vault
Healthier Me Middle School
Hockey Scholar Math & Science
Endeavour STEM Career Exploration
Ignition Digital Safety & Citizenship
Character Playbook
Venture Entrepreneurship
Mental Wellness Basics

High Schools 9-12
Mental Wellness Basics
Venture Entrepreneurship
AlcoholEdu
Prescription Drug Safety
Marketplaces
EVERFI Financial Literacy
Honour Code

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.)

The choices students learn to make when they’re young can have a lasting impact on their lifetime well-being, happiness, and academic success. But 96% of elementary schools are unable to provide daily physical education. EVERFI’s Healthier Me is an innovative, games-based digital course that educates elementary school students about the importance of well-balanced meals and physical activity, preparing them to make healthy, informed decisions when it comes to nutrition and fitness and securing healthier, happier futures for the next generation.

This Course Covers
Making healthy decisions
Eating well-balanced meals
Nutritional properties of foods
Benefits of physical activity
Balancing strength, endurance, and flexibility

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)

The Children’s Health and Well-being Measure (ACHWM) is a tool that gives Indigenous communities and organizations an overview of the health and well-being of children and youth in their communities.

The measure offers insight into children's Spiritual, Emotional, Physical, and Mental wellness.

The survey is completed on a tablet that engages children and acts as a catalyst for honest conversation. The results are shared with each child or youth in a visual form on the Balance Chart.

Mental Wellness Basics introduces students to concepts related to mental health and wellness. Stigma associated with mental health can have serious and negative impacts on help-seeking behaviors, and many mental health conditions and symptoms can be significantly lessened through prevention. As such, the lessons in this course focus on:

Supporting students in identifying threats to mental health early, and taking measures to increase factors that protect mental health.
Introducing students to the experiences of others in order to develop awareness and empathy, reduce stigma, and provide facts on the prevalence and symptoms of mental health conditions.
Fostering a mental health mindset to help students develop feelings of self-efficacy and skills that promote and model advocacy for self and others.

This Course Covers
Self Awareness
Self Management
Relationship Skills
Social Awareness
Responsible Decision-Making

Here, you’ll find a resource of simple, step-by-step instructions on how to deal with symptoms related to specific anxiety disorders as well general strategies — such as how to get a good night’s sleep or how to deal with uncertainty in your daily life.

"This month, we're encouraging you to try something new! Learning something new or getting involved in an activity that really absorbs and interests us is great for our wellbeing. Keeping our brains active is not only good for us physically but it can help you feel you are flourishing as you see yourself make progress with a new skill, or just make you smile as you make a mess and decide to start again. :) Being playful and trying new things is important, as is remembering that it's OK not to get it right first time - change "I can't do it", into "I can't do it...yet!" This month's calendar is full of ideas to help you decide what to try next."

Take time to relax, recharge, and remember your strengths with these fun coloring pages.

Sayings include: I Believe in Me, Breath in Courage Exhale Doubt, I Can Do Hard Things, Don't Give Up! I Can Do This!, It's All Going to be Okay

Check out the great connected lessons that accompany the coloring pages, as well as many other resources.

Find amazing resources for Random Acts of Kindness including:

RAK Calendars for each month

Posters
Bookmarks
Bingo
Colouring
& more!

Follow the link to the Google Play or Apple Store to download the Release App for Mindfulness. This app was created by Keynote Speaker Trinna Markusson at iLearn & SWTA for 2020.

"This new wellness app incorporates mindfulness and tapping techniques to help empower you to begin to deal with daily stress, difficult emotions and limiting beliefs that can hold you back from living your best life! With categories for adults, teens, kids, classroom use and a special high-performance category for athletes, Release can help you to stay present and to live with more peace and ease."

For more information visit (copy and paste into a browser) - http://www.presentmomentliving.ca/

"The BEST Self-Direction Toolkit is a collection of resources for teachers to use in the classroom for instruction and assessment that focuses on self-direction. The toolkit includes the self-direction rubric, self-direction activities and targeted resources for teachers. All tools are designed by teachers and tested in the classroom."

The kit includes activities, self reflections/assessments, rubrics and more!

"Sitting Still Like a Frog Audio
Read by Myla Kabat-Zinn

The audio exercises included with Sitting Still Like a Frog are based on mindfulness-training exercises for adults and developed especially for children and their parents. They form the core of learning to be more mindful at different times throughout the day. You can do the exercises together with your child or children. Some kids like to do the exercises on their own, and many parents love doing the exercises themselves. You can do them sitting on the floor, on a couch or chair, or lying in bed.

To play the audio exercises in your web browser, click the links below. You can also go to SoundCloud directly and download all the tracks to your device or computer."

Social-emotional learning (SEL) instruction in small groups can be a great way to build student belonging and community—while also teaching key skills and competencies that students may need additional support with.

This toolkit includes a set of 6 facilitation guides for small-group SEL activities—complete with “how to” instructions for educators. These low-lift strategies are designed to help promote positive relationships while building students’ SEL skills.

Smiling Mind can be used with kids, teachers or parents - at school and at home!

"Smiling Mind is a non-for-profit web and app-based meditation program developed by psychologists and educators to help bring mindfulness into your life."

To use these mediation, you can use the website, or download the free app from the App Store or Google Play.

There are full programs for classrooms, specifically for teachers, kids as well as adults.