Teaching Tool - Healthy Choices to Support Mental Health (Grade 4)
The purpose of these resources is to encourage students to develop healthy choices to support mental health, with a specific focus on stress management and coping strategies.
Learning goals
- I will understand how healthy choices can have a positive impact on my mental health
- I will use different stress management strategies to find out which strategy helps me the most
- I will learn how to adapt to challenging situations
Core knowledge content
Core knowledge content provides the teacher with the background information needed to prepare and teach this health class.
Ontario curriculum expectations
Grades 1-8: Health and Physical Education (2019)
- D2.5 demonstrates an understanding of how choices they make every day can have a positive impact on their mental health. This specific expectation is also connected with the social emotional learning expectations A1.2 Coping, 1.5 Self and 1.6 Thinking.
- D3.3 demonstrates an understanding of different strategies they can use to manage stress in situations in which they have some control (e.g., peer relationships, maintaining life balance), as well as to adapt to challenging situations over which they have less immediate influence. This specific expectation is also connected with the social emotional learning expectations A1.2 Coping and 1.6 Thinking.
Supplementary resources
- Design an Emoji: Students can design their emojis that represent feelings. Students can use these for self and peer reflection and can be a useful strategy for stress management.
- Mood Diary: Students can monitor and reflect on their moods throughout the day, and understand why they may be feeling a certain way. Students can be creative in how they wish to create their mood diary.
Virtual learning
- Write it Out: In this activity, students can learn about stress management through a virtual format by creating an article post, using a writing platform instructed by the teacher.
Curriculum connections
Writing - Ontario Language Curriculum (2006): Mood diary
- 1.1 identify the topic, purpose, and audience for a variety of writing forms
- 2.4 use sentences of different lengths and structures
Visual arts - Ontario Arts Curriculum (2009): Design your emoji
- 1.3 use elements of design in artworks to communicate ideas, messages, and understandings
- 2.1 interpret a variety of artworks and identify the feelings, issues, themes, and social concerns that they convey
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