Bulletin Board Kit | Classroom Decor for Mindfulness, Mantras and CBT

Item description

This board helps students to 1) identify their feelings and then 2) practice a calming mantra tailored to what they need that day. Learning to manage feelings is a difficult and often overlooked step in a student’s social and emotional development. This classroom resource is based on a cognitive behavioral approach to regulating emotions.

Students simply identify their feeling, take a mantra from the envelope, and practice.

Emotional distractions in my high school classroom are constant and palpable, because…life is hard! I came up with this idea because often my students can’t identify their actual specific feeling, much less begin to start internalizing a positive way to “talk back” to that elusive feeling (or process it). With this board, they can practice identifying their feelings and then take a mantra to keep for as long as they need. I include instructions for using mantras to post next to your board. Also, I include an emergency card with a list of both national hotlines and space for local mental health phone numbers and websites, just in case these feelings need more urgent care.

I do have to help them understand how to use a mantra (after all, it’s not a fortune cookie message!). I teach them to take it, sit with it and have some mindful meditation time with it. They learn this concept quickly and many have also written their own personal mantras in response to this practice.

My students love this. They swarmed around it from the first day I made it and have used it all year. I posted them on a wall in my room using small envelopes I ordered on Amazon (not included, but I used gift card envelopes 4.5″ x 3″), but you can use note cards taped to the wall, crayon boxes, or even cut up old folders to display your board. Occasionally, I have to reprint a feelings page and refill a feelings envelope with mantras, but that’s the only upkeep.

Included in this kit:

• 20 different “feelings” labels
• 5 different mantras to go with each feeling (100 mantras total)
• All mantras are non-denominational 
• Title and subtitles for board 
• Instructions page for how to use the board (made to display) 
• Emergency card with national hotline numbers and space to fill in your local information