Anger Management Lessons

I've taught lessons on anger management to several grade levels over the past few weeks. I know it is vital that children learn that feeling angry is okay but you must not hurt yourself or others when you feel this way. Here are some of the ideas I've used in my teaching of these topics.

In Kindergarten we read the book Mouse Was Mad by Linda Urban. We practiced the standing still and deep breathing skills that Mouse uses as well as brainstormed some other things we could do when we're mad to control our anger. Students drew an angry face and colored a picture of a mouse. This is available for download here.

In third grade, I shook a bottle of soda and we talked about what would happen if we opened the bottle. We saw that if I slowly release a little fizz at a time, it would be safe to open. We connected this with our reading of Julia Cook's Soda Pop Head.  We made a list of all the strategies Lester learns in the story to control his fizz. We practiced several of these strategies together.