The first lesson plan in a social and emotional health unit is designed to help seventh graders develop the skills they need to cope with disappointment and manage stress. Groups practice stress reduction techniques and share ideas for...

Billy Joel's song "Pressure" launches a four-day study of stress; what it is, what causes it, and how stress impacts the body. Class members watch a presentation and short videos about effectively managing stress and then groups research...

Stress is rampant in today's society, and it is important that we equip young learners with the tools to cope with stress in a way that promotes lifelong health, wellness, and productivity. Discover the four A's of dealing with stress —...

Making decisions can be stressful, even for sixth graders. And even students this young have developed coping skills, some positive and some negative, to help them deal with stress. Class members are asked to identify several of their...

Carrot, egg, or tea? A parable gets teens thinking about how, when faced with the same adversity, people respond differently. As the lesson plan progresses, class members learn about how stress is regulated by the sympathetic and...

Middle schoolers learn how to "put stress to rest" by identifying their stress factors and the physical and emotional signs they exhibit when stressed. After the class brainstorms ways to handle these stressors, individuals commit to...

Feeling stressed? Who are you going to call? Why stress busters, of course! A 15-page booklet includes activities designed for tweens and teens. Participants first take a stress test to determine their level of stress. They then learn...

An exercise offers young scholars a coping skill to manage stress or other strong emotions. Learners identify the emotion, focus on how their body feels physically, then pretend they are holding a balloon over their heads, blow their...

Help scholars manage stress with an activity that prompts them to think of their feelings as clouds floating over their heads. Learners identify their feelings, focus on their responses, and allow them to float away.

Two activities focus on stress—common stressors and coping strategies. In the first activity, scholars identify stressors and explore ways to keep stress away. To aid the process, learners create a poster and complete a handout...

A lesson brings awareness to a variety of emotions. After discussing the many types of emotions, scholars create a list sorting emotions as easy and hard and then brainstorm coping skills. Pupils draw a picture depicting a scenario that...

Life changes may cause stress. Here, scholars identify stressful situations in a peer's life and offer coping skills to make for a better day. A short story, "Stressed Out Sally," provides pupils with a look inside a bad day. After...

Provide tweens and teens with information they need to know about stress with an article that details how stress affects various organs in the body. The article also offers tips for healthy ways to cope with stress.

The second lesson plan in the Healthy Living series looks at stress management and provides teens with tools and coping strategies.

Life can be stressful. Class members fill out T-charts identifying stressors associated with school, parents, friends, and life then list coping strategies that can help with each category.

Doctor, doctor, help me please! As part of their study of the correlation between disease and illness, middle schoolers take on the role of doctors. They rotate through 10 learning stations, read about patients' symptoms, and write a...

Stress, eustress, distress. A step-by-step plan leads middle schoolers through a lesson about coping with stress. To gather background information, scholars watch a presentation, examine a list of positive coping skills, and read...

Teach your freshmen stress management techniques that help them cope with distress and stress. Class members create a Relaxation Station where they practice the C.O.P.E strategy for dealing with stress. They then choose from a menu of...

A lesson challenges scholars to identify life stressors and list ways to cope. Learners create a "Coping with Emotions" book detailing the importance of responsibly working through our feelings.

The goal of this Health Smart lesson is for freshmen to develop a personal system for coping with stress. They create a power-up list of things that make them feel happier, healthier, or better connected, identify people in their lives...

After discussing the benefits of positive coping strategies, class members practice the stress management and stress reduction technique of Mindfulness Breathing.

Sometimes the hardest part of planning any unit of instruction is determining the activities that reinforce the concepts of the lessons and support the development of student skills. This first resource in the Health Smart series...

Does having an addict in your family make it more likely to become one yourself? Explore the genetic risk factors, as well as the prominent environmental influences, for substance addiction in a lesson that encourages awareness and open...

Want to discuss the prevalence of prescription drug abuse among teenagers, but running out of class time? A series of short, straightforward activities address topics such as sharing prescription drugs, coping mechanisms for stress, and...