Kids
Feeling happy is the best feeling there is! And this page has heaps of fun activities you can do to feel happier every day.
Gratitude
This is when you think about things you are thankful for (like friends, ice-cream and funny jokes!).
Empathy
Being kind to other people is a special kind of magic — because it makes us feel good too!
Mindfulness
Sometimes things can be TOO exciting and make our heads spin! But slowing down and taking big breaths can help a lot.
Emotional Literacy
It’s ok to feel sad, grumpy or scared sometimes. But knowing your feelings will help you feel better quicker.
Let’s Practise!
If you want to learn to ride a skateboard or get better at maths, you need to practise. It’s the same when you want to feel happier!
Here are some easy ideas to give Gratitude, Empathy, Mindfulness and Emotional Literacy a try every day. Because the more you practise, the better you will feel.
Gratitude
Empathy
Mindfulness
Emotional Literacy
Activities to try this month
Gratitude Scavenger Hunt
Introduction
Practising gratitude by noticing what you have rather than worrying about what you don’t have helps keep your attention focussed on the positives in your life. If you do this each day, you become 3 times more likely to notice a positive in your life then a negative!
The Task
Look around your house and garden to find one item for each of the things on the list below and record the item in the space. If you want you can have a race to see who can find things the quickest.
Emotion Cards
Introduction
Emotional literacy skills not only help us develop the awareness of feelings and
emotions but also help us to manage them and deal with different life situations.
Create a family set of emotion cards, this set of
cards will show a variety of different emotions.
The Task
You will need:
• Pictures of people showing different emotions – you could get
these from the internet, clip art, photographs of family members, magazines, newspapers or hand draw them.
• Some emotions you could include are: happy, sad, frustrated, angry, excited, surprised, worried, etc.
• Cardboard for cards.
• Scissors and glue.
Ways to use your cards:
• Once you have the cards you can play with them innseveral ways as a family.
• Choose a card at random from a stack and try to guess what situation the person was in to cause the particular emotion they are showing.
• Choose a card and talk about a time your child felt that way; what happened and what it was like?
• Choose a card, name the emotion, and discuss what you could do if someone around you was feeling this way.
• Set out several stuffed animals and dolls and put an emotion card on each one; then speak to the figures as if they were feeling those emotions–this will help your child practice how they can respond to people in different emotional situations.
Hold onto your hats and get ready to giggle — it’s time for GEM TV starring the outrageously energetic Martin Heppell! Each episode explores a different evidence-based principle linked to positive mental health — Gratitude, Empathy, Mindfulness, Emotional Literacy and Connection — while being fun and engaging for children in primary school and younger.
GEM TV episodes
Book Week readings
Get to know us
The Resilience Project delivers emotionally engaging programs to schools, sports clubs and businesses, providing practical, evidence-based mental health strategies to build resilience and happiness.
