Simple Calming Strategies
Use simple calming strategies when feeling upset or overwhelmed — such as taking deep breaths, counting to ten, or going to a quiet space — and understand that these help the body and mind settle down
Share and support
Teaching Table
Set out your lesson
Explore two optional settling actions while already comfortable, and choose a possible support for a fictional character.
Learner is comfortable enough to choose or decline; adult can offer a familiar quiet place without isolation.
Check activity readiness with accessible response; pause or supply prerequisite help when needed. Do not treat age range or graph position as attainment.
Open teaching first, then learner cards. Adult key stays separate. Read supplied content; do not invent a passage, scene or history image.
Show and guided material are for teaching. Put them aside before recall; any passage, word bank or model used during the check must be recorded as support. Learner givens remain available for source-reading tasks.
Only scrap paper, pencil or ordinary safe objects where the authored task explicitly uses them; oral/pointing alternatives allowed.
No account, recording, real-user data or compulsory personal disclosure.
Materials are ready in each step. Use them on screen or print just the current step. Put teaching examples aside before the learner tries.
What this lesson covers and its limits
These are bounded opportunities, not learner attainment. Partial and blocked source requirements remain so.
- partial: Use simple calming strategies when feeling upset or overwhelmed — such as taking deep breaths, counting to ten, or going to a quiet space — and understand that these help the body and mind settle down
Bounded objective and prepared task only; all examples, universal claims and real-world behaviour are not established. Do not provoke upset, force breathing, delay comfort, require private feelings or score calm appearance. A genuine independently chosen action during real upset is conditional, never staged.
- partial: Demonstrate at least two calming strategies when prompted
Optional demonstration provides an opportunity only if learner chooses it.
- partial: Choose to use a calming strategy independently during a real upset
Real upset and independent choice are not created or observed here.
- partial: Explain in simple terms why calming down helps them think better
Prompt offers a simple possible reason, not a physiological or therapeutic claim.
- partial: When {{name}} gets really upset — say they lose a game or argue with a sibling — can they use a strategy like deep breaths to calm themselves down rather than staying in meltdown mode?
Prepared adapted check is not a complete equivalent to all source contexts, images or genuine independent habits. Do not provoke upset, force breathing, delay comfort, require private feelings or score calm appearance. A genuine independently chosen action during real upset is conditional, never staged.
Do not provoke upset, force breathing, delay comfort, require private feelings or score calm appearance. A genuine independently chosen action during real upset is conditional, never staged.
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Teaching approaches
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1 approach
Explore two optional settling actions while already comfortable, and choose a possible support for a fictional character.
Explore two optional settling actions while already comfortable, and choose a possible support for a fictional character.
Family records and proof options
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Learning resources
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Check understanding
- Demonstrate at least two calming strategies when prompted
- Choose to use a calming strategy independently during a real upset
- Explain in simple terms why calming down helps them think better
“When your child gets really upset — say they lose a game or argue with a sibling — can they use a strategy like deep breaths to calm themselves down rather than staying in meltdown mode?”
Curriculum record
- Type
- Procedural
- Subject
- Personal & Social Development
- Domain
- Self-Regulation & Resilience
- Age range
- Ages 5–7
Standards