Free Well-Being Resources from OTB - Outside the Box Learning Resources

This free 30-Day Positivity Challenge for children aims to support children’s well-being by providing them with a range of feel-good activities to try out in school or at home. Teachers or parents/guardians can download the pdf and children can choose an activity to do each day and cross it off as they do it. Children might like to create a Positivity Folder to keep all of their work in. They could also take photos of their challenges to keep a digital record. A downloadable award certificate can be given to the children as they progress through the challenges as follows:

• 10 Challenges – Bronze Award
• 20 Challenges – Silver Award
• 30 Challenges – Gold Award

Click on the chart and the certificates below to download them as pdfs ready for printing or sharing. Best of luck to everyone with the challenges!

OTB Author Fiona Forman and Graphic Designer Andrea Heron have designed a free booklet to assist teachers in helping newly-arrived children from the Ukraine to feel safe, calm, hopeful and connected, as well as providing them with ways to cope.

The content of the booklet has been reviewed by Educational Psychotherapist Marie Delaney. Marie has extensive experience working with students who have been affected by traumatic experiences and is the founder of trauma-ed.com.

NB: Marie has advised that teachers using this booklet should refer to the accompanying Teacher Notes.

The booklet – Welcome to Ireland – Classroom Activities for Newly Arrived Students – is dual language (English and Ukrainian) and is available as a free download HERE or in printed format, free from Outside the Box.

The activities in the booklet aim to give children the opportunity to reflect on and share their strengths, likes and hobbies with their new teacher (and classmates, if they wish to). The activities are aimed at children aged approximately 10-12 but can be used for older or younger at the teacher’s discretion.

FREE COPIES: Schools may order actual printed copies of the booklet for their Ukrainian children at no charge by completing the Free Booklet Request Form HERE or by emailing: ukraine-support@otb.ie

Click on the image below to access these Creative Mindfulness FREE Resources:

Teachers are also invited to download the following FREE resource packs. Both are grounded in evidence-based interventions from the rapidly expanding field of Positive Psychology. Positive Psychology is the science of well-being. Each pack contains five activities, each focussing on five simple messages. Click on a cover to access these free resources.

PRIMARY:

Return to School with Weaving Well-Being

1. 1. Covid-19: It’s Time to Tell Your Story
   2. All Feelings are OK
   3. Notice the Good Stuff
   4. Everything You Need is Inside You
   5. Look Back, but Move Forward

SECONDARY:

Return to School with Wired for Well-Being

1. 1. Your Story Matters
   2. Put Your Well-Being First
   3. It’s OK not to Feel OK
   4. Don’t Just Go Through It, Grow Through It
   5. Look Back, but Move Forward

These booklets are underpinned by the following recently published documents:

• DES: Supporting the Wellbeing of School Communities as Schools Reopen: Guidance for Schools (2020)
• PSI: The Relaunch: Back to School after Covid-19 Restrictions (2020)

Both of these resources are a follow on from a free mental well-being journal for kids published and made available to parents called ‘At Home with Weaving Well-Being‘. More information on this at www.otb.ie/wwb.home. These free journals are derivatives of OTB’S positive psychology well-being school programmes for Irish schools, details as follows:

• Welcome to Well-Being (PRIMARY: Infants to 1st Class)
• Weaving Well-Being (PRIMARY: 2nd to 6th Class) / Fí na Folláine (Rand a Dó – Rang a Sé)
• Wired for Well-Being (SECONDARY: First Year to Third Year)