Teaching About Feelings in the Special Education Classroom

After all the talk about what students love during Valentine's Day activities, I always found a natural next step in my thematic units was to focus on feelings and emotions. 

Check out some of my favorite Emotions activities:

ELA Ideas

• I first introduce feelings vocabulary. We use a variety of visuals including photos, icons, and even emojis. 

• Next, we practice sorting emotions based on the vocabulary we've learned. These cut and paste worksheets are also included in my Feelings Thematic Unit. 

• Then, we read stories to discuss each emotion in context. I love The Way I Feel by Janan Cain because it covers so many robust feeling words. I use the communication board from my Feelings Thematic Unit for students to participate.

• Another favorite feelings story is When Sophie Gets Angry-- Really, Really Angry by Molly Bang. I love this story for introducing the concept of coping strategies to my students. 

I love this story so much that I created an entire Picture Book Communication and Comprehension Supports resource which you can check out in my TPT store. It includes vocabulary, sentence building boards, AAC, comprehension questions, sequencing, and fill-in-the blank activities. Plus IEP goal ideas and progress monitoring sheets!

 

Social Group Ideas

• We practice our feelings vocabulary words by playing a game of charades where each student makes a silly emoji face and sees if their friends can guess them 😜😉😁😋🤨😱

😡😡😡

☹️☹️☹️

😁😁😁

• We also practice our vocabulary with a variety of games including BINGO and this great board game board. 

I use this universal game board from my Feeling Thematic Unit to practice a variety of skills depending on the needs of my students including: number, letter, or sound ID, reading sight words, answering math facts, or practicing other IEP goal skills in addition to our emotions vocabulary!

 

• We also follow up our unit on When Sophie Gets Angry by talking about our own emotions, what causes them, and coping strategies for what we call BIG emotions. I created a book template for my students to use as a resource when they are having big feelings. It aligns loosely with The Zones of Regulation. This template is included as one of the 12 cross-curricular activities in my Feelings Thematic Unit.

• This is also a good time to introduce our classroom Big Feelings Tools. I use the A Little Peaceful Spot book from the A Little Spot of Emotion by Diane Alber. After reading the story, I use a slide deck to introduce our Big Feeling Tools and model each tool and we discuss the expectations. 

Our big feelings tools for moving our bodies include a Color Match Station which is a velcro board poster where students get vestibular input from bending down to get an Ellison cutout and then match it to the poster and a Heavy Work Station in which students match covered textbooks to corresponding colored Xs in the hallway.

Our big feelings tools for resting our bodies include a Picture Reading Poster from S'cool Moves, a Calming Kit with small fidgets, and my Special Interest Deep Breathing Posters.

Math Ideas

• With so many different emotion icons, it can be a great opportunity to practice graphing. I have done this in a variety of ways. When we have more time, I have students sort and graph emoji erasers like these from Amazon:

 

One year, my OT pushed in for a group and we actually had students make a collage with emoji stickers and then count and graph each emoji they used. These stickers were another great Amazon find. 

For both the erasers and stickers, Amazon has a TON of options so you can certainly choose what variety works best for your students. 

Admittedly, there have been years where I have needed to simplify the assignment so I pre-made a worksheet with various emotions for students to create. Of course you can find this in my Feelings Thematic Unit 😉!

• These erasers and stickers are also a great way to practice basic counting for students who aren't quite ready for graphing yet. I also made a fun emoji counting worksheet.

Cooking Ideas

• During our cooking time, my students loved making cooking activities with different faces such as waffles, rice cakes, or english muffin pizzas. 

Interested in these activities and more? Why not bundle and save! 

What is your favorite activity to teach feelings in your classroom? Which of these activities are you excited to try? 

Sensory Supports in the Special Education Classroom

Download my FREE Calming and Alerting Sensory Cheatsheet!

I look forward to connecting with you and sharing SpEd Spot tips and FREEBIES!

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Did you know that research has shown that up to 88% of students with an identified disability have difficulty processing sensory input? Therefore, addressing sensory needs in the special education classroom is essential to ensuring students are ready to learn. In my classroom, I used a variety of whole group and individual sensory supports. Every day I had proactive supports embedded within our schedule. Then, during difficult moments when students were dysregulated, I could rely on these well-established strategies to provide additional support.

Deep Breathing

I love deep breathing to help myself calm when I am stressed. Often it was hard for my students to master this strategy because they would breathe too quickly or intensely (picture hyperventilating in a paper bag 😬).

I created an interactive visual support that incorporated special interests. Students use a pointer icon to track while they breathe in for a count of 3 and out for a count of 6. I have students exhale twice as long as they inhale to ensure they fully empty their lungs of carbon dioxide to provide more room for oxygen.

This support can be projected and used with the whole group.

Or it can be made into individual breathing boards for students who need more frequent deep breathing breaks.

Proactively, deep breathing is a great strategy after sensory-rich times of day like arrival, specials, or recess. It can also be great before stressful times of day such as before a test or quiz.

Reactively, students can take an extra deep breathing break in a calming corner or in the hallway.

Grab this support in my TPT store by clicking the image below!

Classroom Yoga

Yoga is another great sensory support for helping students feel calm and mindful. In my classroom, I tried to use yoga videos on YouTube but found they were often too fast-paced or required too much motor planning. So I created my own classroom yoga materials!

I wanted something that could be easily adapted to my students' needs so that they could focus more on regulating and less on the pace and motor demands. I used color coding to easily differentiate between difficulty levels.

I also wanted something that could be used during with the whole group so I created a projectable slideshow and posters. The slide show can be used to create a daily sequence.

The posters can also be used to create a group sequence. I have also seen some students choose a few options to place by their carpet time area for students to choose a pose when they come to the carpet.

Additionally, I created a smaller set of flashcards which can be used to create individualized yoga sequences or can be used to create a yoga ring as each pose is introduced and practiced during direct instruction.

Finally, I wanted a support that could be easily implemented by support staff or paraprofessionals without them needing to put much thought into the flow so I created a variety of sequences that were ready to implement. These can be used individually or as a whole group and I have special sequences that can be used during specific times of the day such as carpet time, warming up, cooling down, or a quick sequence that students can do standing next to their desks.

Proactively, I love starting the day with classroom yoga and find it to be much more beneficial than starting the day with academic demands such as morning work.

Reactively, students can use their yoga flashcard ring of mastered poses or a sequence to complete when they are in need of some extra time to regulate.

Find it on my TPT store!

Sensory Choice Folders

For some students, sensory supports need to be individualized to address their specific sensory processing differences and meet their needs. I wanted an easy way to implement student-specific sensory breaks so I created these Sensory Choice Folders which contained strategies that had been previously introduced and practiced.

This allowed me to determine who needed alerting input and who needed calming input. Additionally, it made it easy to proactively schedule sensory breaks because I could easily add icons to their visual schedules for a folder break. Students who needed alerting would have a "yellow folder" icon while students who needed calming would have a "blue folder" icon.

Incorporating choice was also effective for my students who were sometimes resistant to sensory supports.

Proactively, I collaborated with my building OT to determine the frequency of these folder breaks for each student.

Reactively, I could easily increase the number of folder breaks for students by adding additional icons to their daily schedule. Because students used these folders daily and had practiced all of the activities presented inside, it made it easier for them to make a choice in the moment even when they were feeling dysregulated.

Grab yours below!

Calming and Alerting Cheatsheet

In the moment, it can sometimes be hard to remember what type of input is calming and what is alerting. I created this quick cheatsheet as an easy reference at any time.

Click the image below to get this great cheatsheet for FREE!

Sensory Saturday--Sensory Folders

Wow it has been a while since I have had a Sensory Saturday! But my classroom has been a sensory hot mess lately so I wanted to share the great strategy that I have began to use in the classroom that is both quick and easy--Sensory Folders.

 My sensory folders take into account two basic sensory needs: Alerting and Calming. To learn more about these sensory needs check out my handout on Sensory Supports for the Classroom. Unfortunately I cannot take full credit for this idea because my wonderful teaching partner also uses something very similar based on one of her student's needs.

I created sensory folders for two students in particular who have completely opposite sensory needs. The first student is typically a lump on a log! He is very low-tone and not really engaged in our activities most of the time. For him I made the yellow "alerting" folder.

In the folder, I provided a variety of alerting choice options such as spinning in the teachers chair, tactile brushing, or frog jumps.

The second student is a live wire! She is in constant motion all day--bouncing, rocking, flapping. Just watching her wears me out so trying to teach when she is so wound up is totally exhausting! She got the blue "calming" folder.

In the folder, I provided calming choice options such as joint compressions, body sock, or weigthed ball toe touches.

You may notice that the same items can be used on both charts. This depends on the way you use them. For instance, I use a therapy ball to alert a child by having them sit on it and bouncing them while it is used to calm them by having them lie on the floor while I roll it over them providing deep pressure input. A hand massage with peppermint lotion is alerting while vanilla is calming. And while a student is lying prone on a scooterboard and using their arms to move forward provides calming, heavy work input having them lie prone and hold a jump rope while you "whip" them around in circles or in a erratic zig-zag motion is very alerting (but tiring for the teacher!!!).

Hope these folders gave my readers some good ideas about practical sensory supports. Head over to my TPT Store to pick up a copy of your own!