Date: 1994

Grade level(s): 3

Subject(s):

• Health/Mental or Emotional Health

Overview:

All human beings experience a certain amount of stress, and stress can be thought of as negative or positive energy. This is just one lesson out of many that helps students identify and deal with stress.

Purpose:

This lesson is designed to make each child aware that stress has a major affect on his/her feelings.

Objective:

• Identify feelings that can cause stress.
• Explore the fact that carrying these feelings and holding onto stress uses a lot of energy.
• Understand that stress can affect everything one does.

Materials:

• six unopened cans of different sizes
• marking pen
• colored paper
• carrying sack or square milk carrier

Activities:

Cover cans with paper and label each can with one of these words: mad, sad, scared, tense, frustrated, ignored and any other feelings that are brainstormed in your class.

Pick a name out of a jar (2 or 3 students a day can have a turn). This can be done daily until everyone has had a turn.

The student comes up and picks out the can or cans of feelings that he/she has felt that day or before. The student then places those cans into the sack.

The student and classmates are watching how large the sack becomes.

The student then can walk around the room experiencing the weight it adds ,and how it grows heavier with each passing moment.

The student then begins to unload the sack, and he/she places each identified can on the table and explains why they were feeling that way.

Tying It Together:

Have a brief discussion about feeling stressed, how you may be carrying some of these feelings inside you, and that some real relief is felt after expressing yourself.

Additional activities:

• Teaching to be stress managers
• Making a stress plan
• Relaxing
• Understanding body responses
• Fight or flight