1) Keep a diary of 3 things that made you happy / smile each day – think about these things when you are feeling down

2) Human Mirror:- Stand face to face; one person leads and the other person acts as a mirror image copying the actions of the first person. Start slowly to warm up your muscles and then add more and more actions. Make sure you mirror everything; facial expressions, finger movements etc

3) Car Counting:- Choose a colour and try and spot cars that have this colour as they are walking around. Registration numbers. Different types of vehicles (cars / vans / lorries / motorbikes / cyclists)

4) Human Dodgeball:- Challenge yourself to spot others around you.

– If you are in a group, whoever sees someone first gets the points.

– Award 1 point if they are in-front of you and 2 points if someone is behind you.

– You could keep a daily tally and reward the most observant at the end of the week with a small reward.

5) Rating other properties:- If you live in an area where there are gardens, which house has the nicest front garden – you could pop a thank you card through their door to say thank you. Or you could count the number of bins you see at the front of someone’s houses.

6) Weekly observations:- Choose one garden or part of a park: Keep a weekly diary to see what changes have happened in that space from one week to the next (for example trees developing leaves, change of bark colour, flowers or grass growing).

7) Orienteering:- Decide on a length of the walk and using a map of the area (for example Google maps), ask children to work out how far they will need to walk and ask them to navigate their way around the walk.

8) Calm Jar:- A great way to help you to feel calm, relax, help you to fall asleep and to give your chance to have a break and to help you to focus. You will need: a jar or a bottle, PVA glue (liquid), fine glitter, a paper funnel to help to get the glitter in, warm water, food colouring (optional), glue to seal the lid. To make your calm jar:-

1. Fill your bottle about 1/8 to 1/3 full with glue. The more glue you add, the longer it will take for the glitter to settle after shaking.

2.Add glitter, start with a tablespoon or so.

3.Fill the bottle the rest of the way with warm water. Leave about 2.5cm or 1 inch at the top of the bottle, cap it, and shake it to see if you want to add more glitter, more glue, or just more water.

4.When the bottle is full up to the neck with water, glitter, and glue, cap it. I recommend using a hot glue gun to seal the cap closed

9) Recognising and recording your emotions:-

– Keep a diary of how you feel during the day and what you were doing; is there a time when you often feel happy or sad? What are you doing at that time – can these things be changed or adapted to make you feel happier?

– Also, draw pictures of lots of different emotions; at the start of the day tell someone that you trust how you feel. You could put a marker (like a post-it note) to show them.

– If this changes during the day then move the marker during the day.

– What can we do to change the things you hate? E.g. I hate vacuuming so when I do this I will sing loudly and out of tune!

10) Emotion picture-board / emotion traffic light system:- Draw pictures of subjects that you are studying, jobs/tasks that you need to do, things that you enjoy doing. Talk to your family about which activities make you feel happy, sad, frustrated etc. Use these to help you to form a timetable so that you know what is going to happen during the day. Can you choose some things that make you feel happy?

11) I’m grateful for … At some point each day spend some time with your family or someone that you trust, and give time for all you to answer these three questions:-

– What have I done today to make someone else happy?

– What has someone else done today to make me feel happy?

– What have I learnt today?

12) Keep a journal:- just a sentence or a picture a day about how you feel, what you did so you can share it with friends or family later.

13) Explore your neighbourhood:- is there something on offer that you didn’t know about?

14) Down tools and listen to your favourite songs for half an hour:– dance, sing or simply sit and listen, music is a great way to focus your mind.

15) Take creative photos of your favourite things in your house:– are your houseplants creating unusual shadows? Can you find a new angle to your favourite corner of the house?

16) Cook your favourite meal:– baking or cooking is a good way to pass the time, and you’ll feel a sense of achievement after you’ve finished.

17) Plant something:– seeds, plants or cress in the kitchen, planting something and watching it grow is good for our mental health.

18) Listen to the sounds of nature

19) Look after pets/animals

20) Try some meditation or yoga. Click here and scroll down on the linked page to have a go at some yoga and meditation!