Activities

Children need the experience of feeling emotions and practice tolerating them to develop self-control and emotional intelligence. Article by the Gottman Institute.

Kimochis® are a great tool to teach kids emotional literacy. Get a bag of Kimochis, put them in a bowl, and pick 1-2 every night at dinner to discuss. Website has free resources.

Flexible thinking is a skill that lets kids look at situations in different ways and find solutions to new problems.

Watch Disney's movie Inside Out to teach kids about emotions. Website includes activities to download.

Teach children how to identify and label their emotions by first finding the primary, then refining their emotion to the secondary and tertiary definitions. 

Building Thinking Skills® kits and workbooks for Toddlers - 12th grade is a best-selling thinkings skills program, developmentally sequenced for buidling critical thinkings skills. 

Critical Thinking Activities for Kids: Fun and Challenging Games to Boost Brain Power (2021) by Taylor Lang helps you learn to think outside of the box for kids age 6-9.

Absurdities offers step-by-step exercises to improve thinking and logic skills for children age 3-6.

Use Connect-Extend-Challenge thinking strategy to broaden thinking and challenge assumptions about a topic.

Use Circle of Viewpoints thinking strategy to increase critical thinking when considering many perspectives of a problem or issue.