A student’s sense of belonging can come from connections with both peers and adults. This downloadable guide includes five strategies for building strong relationships with students and creating a positive school culture where everyone feels they belong.

"This guide offers two different approaches to teaching Encanto:

1. Show a few specific clips, paired with discussion questions.
2. Show the entire film, paired with a more in-depth lesson plan (below) and handout.

Feel free to use either approach, or even combine the two into one lesson (or an entire unit) based around the movie. If you only have a single class period, it might be ideal to show just a few key clips mentioned below. If you decide to help students delve deeper into the topic, you might show the entire film and have more extensive discussions over multiple days. Of course, you could also use some combination of the two, adapting the lesson to best suit your class's needs."

This lesson and active viewing guide are aligned with CASEL 5 and you can help your students:
*develop interests and a sense of purpose
*show the courage to take initiative
*resist peer pressure
*resolve conflict
*show concern for others' feelings
*reflect on community
*identify solutions

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

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

Sun West students - ask your teacher to add you to a course! Currently we access Everfi via the Clever portal. Leila Pullum (lpullum@everfi.com) is here to respond to student and teacher support questions, so please don’t hesitate to reach if you need help.

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

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.

Ages: 8+

Coping with stress is a skill we need to teach at school across a wide breadth of subjects.

Videos, Podcasts, Quizzes!
Learn how anything works. It's all here from health, science, home/garden, auto, tech, money, lifestyle, enterainment, adventure, animals and more!

"Let it Ripple is a non-profit film and idea studio. We produce films, original series, and live and virtual experiences that inspire audiences to think about what it means to be human in today's world."

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.

PBS has created and shared tons of media rich, engaging, digital lessons for a wide range of grade levels and subject areas.

Find FREE videos, interactives, lesson plans, and more just for teachers like you. Choose from lots of filters that will customize your search so you can find exactly what you're looking for.

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/

"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.

The Smithsonian Learning Lab puts the treasures of the world's largest museum, education, and research complex within reach. The Lab is a free, interactive platform for discovering millions of authentic digital resources, creating content with online tools, and sharing in the Smithsonian's expansive community of knowledge and learning.

Use the search tool to discover lots of resources on endless topics. The sky's the limit!

This is a cross curricular project revolving around the documentary The Social Dilemma. Students will write an essay and create an Action Plan to tackle the issues surrounding Social Media and it's pervasiveness in our lives. The outcomes covered are focused in Social 7, Health 7 and ELA 7. 

"Physical signs of stress can include headaches, stiff joints, and sore stomachs. Due to our bodies’ own self-protective measures, we might not realize that we’re living with symptoms of stress for days, weeks, months, or years. To support you, Yoga Ed. has created this toolkit. In this toolkit, you will find body-based practices to manage stress and support your and your students’ physical and emotional wellbeing."

You will need to provide your email to download the kit.

Poses and exercises for:
*headaches
*tension
*tight shoulders
*back ache
*sore hands
*vertigo
*stomach ache
*jaw

Strong Minds make for Strong Kids
Strong Minds Strong Kids, Psychology Canada is committed to promoting the mental well-being of children and youth in Canada. We are dedicated to nurturing resilience in kids with the use of psychological science so they can manage, learn, and grow from the many challenges in life.