Social Emotional Learning through Cool Tools

and the CWCKC Continuum:

Chill Zone and Chill Breaks

Objective:​ ​To equip our student citizens to identify emotions in themselves, to self-advocate
for their needs, to utilize various strategies to calm themselves back to emotional baseline, and
to maximize learning time in a safe environment.

What is a CWCKC Chill Zone or Chill Break?

Is... Is not...
● Student choice ● Teacher mandated
● Full of optional strategies and tools ● Punishment or consequence for behavior
● Timed visit ● Play center
● Used consistently throughout the school ● Used differently by each teacher
● Where to facilitate processing with a ● Where to remove a disruptive student
student once they are calm

How does a CWCKC Chill Zone or Chill Break work?

1. Feel Your Feels 2. Choose To Act and 3. Pick a Strategy to Chill
to feel different emotions, Self-Advocate Out
ens of the world we need After we identify our emotions, There are lots of different ways
gnize how we feel and we have a choice to inflate or to calm ourselves down. We can
t as heated up or chilled deflate the situation with our choose one that works best for
actions. If we need to chill out, us based on what tools we have
we need to advocate for and or what our environment is.
communicate what we need.

4. Set Your Timer 5. Use Your Strategy 6. Process with an Adult

re for a set amount The strategies and resources in The teacher’s job is to help
us be responsible the chill zone are tools, not toys. students grow from their
ng time and Chilling out should be purposeful mistakes. Once a student is at
ur friends. and intentional. baseline, the student and adult
need to understand the past,
and agree on next steps or what
to do in the future.

7. Return to Learning in the Community

t part of our class. The reason we are at school is to grow our brains and be apart of
nity. After we chill out, we need to return to our first job which is to go back to
ds.
 Chill Zone / Chill Break Lesson Plans
Standards: Objectives:
Health K2.C.a Recognize different emotions. I can distinguish between chill out strategies and
heat up strategies.

I can choose which chill out strategies would work

best for me.

Materials:​ Inflate/Deflate Strategies Anchor Assessment:

Chart; Heat up/Chill out T-chart; Book or
ts Projector for video (​
); Strategy charts for sorting (icon and
text); Tape; Markers; Chill Zone
Flow/Procedure Anchor Chart; Cool Tools
Handbook page for Chill Zone; Pencils;
Crayons; Ice cube tray from toolbox
Class Discussion ​(identifying emotions; discuss
Sophie’s strategies from book; discuss which
strategy cards align to heating up or chilling out)
Role-Playing
Drawing​ (Students will draw four strategies that
would work best for them)

Day 1 Instructional Steps:

1. If previously taught- Review Inflate/Deflate (5 mins)
a. Show inflate/deflate anchor chart and review definitions of inflating a conflict
(makes it bigger) and deflating a conflict (makes it smaller or go away).
b. Ask students to identify inflate/deflate strategies.
c. Explain these are strategies we use when we are in a conflict with another person.
But we can also have conflicts in ourselves based on the emotions we feel.
d. Explain that today we are going to learn about what kind of emotions make us
have conflicts within ourselves and others.
2. Connect to Emotions (I felt statements) (10 mins)
a. Explain some emotions we have are heated emotions and others are chilled
emotions.
b. Ask and discuss-- what kinds of emotions make you feel hot or heated up inside?
c. List these on the “heat up” side of the anchor chart-- ER: frustrated, angry, sad,
mad, confused.
d. Ask and discuss-- what kinds of emotions make you feel chill or cool inside?
e. List these on the “chill out” side of the anchor chart-- ER: calm, relaxed, happy,
content, okay.
 3. Read Aloud (10 mins)
a. Show book, ​ , explain that this book is about a girl that
feels both heated up and chilled out emotions.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tISX0wadZnE
b. Show video of book or read aloud the actual book
c. Ask- What emotions did you see or hear Sophie feeling?
d. Facilitate turn and talk and share out; add to the anchor chart as necessary

Day 2 Instructional Steps:

4. Quick Review (5 mins) - ​Chilled out and Heated up emotions
a. Turn and Talk to your partner about what emotions are chilled out and what
emotions are heated up.
b. Share out and refer again to anchor chart
5. Guided Practice- Intro Strategies from Sophie Book (15 mins)
a. Show Sophie book again and ask- What did Sophie do when she felt the heated
up emotions?
b. Facilitate Turn and Talk and share out (ER: used a red voice, kicked/threw toys,
ran away). (Connect these strategies to inflate strategies, if previously taught)
c. Ask- What did Sophie do when she felt chilled out again?
d. Facilitate Turn and Talk and share out (ER: used a blue voice, went for a walk,
looked at nature) (Connect these strategies to deflate strategies, if previously
taught)
e. Explain the why: When we feel heated up emotions, that’s ok. But it is often
difficult for us to learn and be safe when we have heated up emotions. That is why
we need to find ways to change our heated up emotions into chilled out emotions,
like Sophie did.
f. Show ice cube tray. Facilitate Turn and Talk: “Imagine that you have a hot drink in
front of you. What would happen to the temperature of the drink if you dropped in
an ice cube?” Share out ideas. (ER: The hot drink would become cold.)
g. Explain that we have different strategies that can be like ice cubes to help us chill
out when we feel heated up that we will talk more about tomorrow!

Day 3 Instructional Steps:

6. Guided Practice- Strategy Sort (15 mins)
a. Explain that today we are going to learn about those different strategies that can
be like ice cubes for us when we feel heated up emotions.
b. Show cut out strategies cards and model how to choose a strategy card, read it,
and decide if it is a heat up or chill out strategy. Post on the anchor chart.
c. Demonstrate hand motions for “heat up” and “chill out”.
d. Call one student up at a time to “read” the card and decide if that strategy would
be a heat up or chill out out strategy. Ask for class response using hand motions.
Facilitate discussion if necessary.
e. Continue until all cards are posted on the anchor chart.
Day 4 Instructional Steps:
7. Guided Practice- Model Choosing Strategies for Self (20 mins)
a. Review anchor chart of strategies and read through each side using hand
motions.
b. Explain that we have a spot in our classrooms that we can use to help us practice
chill out strategies. This is called the chill zone, and when we go there it is called a
chill break.
c. Show Chill Zone Flow/Procedure Anchor Chart-- Explain that we have a certain
way that we will use the chill zone. Read through the steps and have students
repeat saying each step with hand motions.
i. Feel Your Feels​ (explain that it is ok to feel different emotions, now that we
know which emotions are heated up and chilled out emotions, we can
identify them when we feel them)
ii. Choose to Act and Self-Advocate​ (explain that after we feel our emotions,
we need to make a choice to inflate or deflate, keep heating up or chill out.
If we need to chill out, then we need to ask an adult for what we need… like
going to the chill zone so that the teacher can know how to help us)
iii. Pick a Strategy ​(explain that there are different strategies as options for us
to use to chill out, we can pick which one we prefer)
iv. Set a Timer​ (explain that we use a timer so that we can make sure we get
back to the learning community as soon as possible)
v. Use the Strategy​ (explain that it is our job to be responsible and respectful
when using tools or materials in the chill zone so that they serve their
purpose of calming us down, not distracting others, and keep the space
safe and tidy-- if we abuse it, we lose it)
vi. Process with an Adult​ (explain that if order for us to return to the learning
community we need to talk to an adult what we feel and how the adult can
help us to in the future)
vii. Return to the Learning Community​ (explain that it is our first job to learn
with our friends, so we need to get back to that as soon as possible)
d. Model how to go to the chill zone by pretending to feel a heated up emotion.
Narrate your thoughts and actions.
e. Ask students to help role-playing this. Give scenario for the student and narrate
actions.
i. Example: Feeling frustrated and moving to the Chill Zone safely
ii. Non-example: Feeling frustrated and ​ moving to the Chill Zone safely
(kicking chairs on the way, stomping on the way, etc.)
iii. Non-example: Feeling frustrated and throwing chair, screaming, etc.
iv. Example: Setting a timer and processing with a teacher when ready to
return to the group
v. Example: Teacher noticing a student heating up and suggesting the Chill
Zone
Day 5 Instructional Steps:
8. Guided Practice- Model Handbook Page (5 mins)
a. Show cool tools handbook page for Chill Zone and model how to illustrate
strategies that you prefer.
9. Independent Practice (10 mins)
a. Pass out handbooks pages.
b. Students will work on picking strategies that work best for them and illustrate
those.
c. Refer students to the anchor chart as needed.
d. Check for correct identification of strategies.
e. Challenge- students can write the title of the strategy under each illustration.
f. Modification- Students can do fewer strategies, or write out the title of the
strategy under the illustration so they can focus on the drawing

Recommendations for Extension

Create a sequence map of Sophie’s story (i.e. sister grabs her gorilla, Sophie wants the gorilla
and feels frustrated, Sophie screams and trips, etc) See attached resources.

Make actual hot chocolate (very hot) and put ice cubes in it. Discuss how we can’t drink the hot
hot beverage. Create an analogy for the beverage being a heated up situation and identify ice
cubes as different strategies. See attached worksheet for additional individual practice.

Book Read Alouds: My Mouth is a Volcano