Stop, Breathe, Think Traffic Light

Practice the breathing pages when your child is calm, slowly and together, so the strategy is ready for a hard moment. Keep the traffic light and the calm corner plan where your child can see them. When a big feeling comes, remind them of the step they practiced rather than starting something new.

Six calming pages for Pre-K and Kindergarten. Children trace belly breathing hills and a hand for five-finger breathing, circle the calm down choices, color a stop, breathe, think traffic light and match each step, and circle who is waiting nicely in each row. The last page has them circle four things they would want in a calm down corner. Three pages have an answer key.

Yes, both. We made it for Kindergarten social-emotional learning, and the page works the same whether it lands on a kitchen table or a center rotation. At home, most families go through it together and talk the answers out loud, and that talking is where most of the learning happens with self-control and calming strategies. In class it runs well as independent work while you pull a small group. Print one copy or thirty, whichever the day needs.

A child traces up one finger while breathing in and down the other side while breathing out, five times, once for each finger. Tracing the hand on the page first makes the pattern easy to remember.

A few calming things your child picks: a soft pillow, a stuffed animal, a book, a breathing card. On the calm corner page children circle four things they would want, which gives you a starting list.

Social-emotional learning, often called SEL, is how children learn to understand their feelings, get along with others and make good choices. For 4 to 6 year olds that means naming feelings like happy, sad and mad, sharing and taking turns, using kind words, calming down with a few deep breaths, and trying again when something is hard. These worksheets practice each of those with pictures, not reading.

Name feelings out loud in everyday moments, yours and theirs: you look frustrated, the tower fell down. Then use a picture page to practice, like circling the feeling face or matching a picture to how it would feel. Children who have words for a feeling can tell you about it instead of only showing it, which makes the feeling easier to handle together.

Slow breathing is the easiest to teach. Belly breathing and five-finger breathing give a child something to trace or touch while they breathe in and out, and stop, breathe, think gives them three steps to remember. Practice when your child is already calm, so the strategy is familiar before a big feeling arrives, and set up a calm down corner with a few comfort items.

Yes. The pages are written for Pre-K and Kindergarten. Each one uses pictures and a short direction that a grown-up reads aloud, and children answer by circling, matching, coloring, tracing, drawing or cutting and gluing. The only writing is tracing a few friendly or feeling words.