5 Outdoor Counseling Activities That Kids Will Love & Learn From
Picture this: You’re about to start your counseling lesson. It’s the PERFECT weather day - not too warm, not too cold and the sun’s shining brightly through the window. All of the students (and you) are itching to go outside, daydreaming about enjoying the beauty, instead of being stuck inside the four classroom walls.
Then, one of your students asks “Can we go outside?” This is your chance to be the hero and give everyone some much needed fresh air. BUT, you have a lesson to teach, and important social emotional skills to work on with your students.… So, what do you do?
The good news is that there are many fun, and meaningful outdoor counseling activities. These ideas will help you teach about a wide variety of SEL topics while you and your students get to enjoy the outdoors.
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1- Write Encouraging Messages With Chalk
A favorite outdoor activity for many kids is chalk! It’s so easy and gives them a chance to use their creativity. You can turn this into a school counseling activity by having students use chalk to write encouraging messages. You can do this at your school’s entrance, on the playground, etc.
Before you go outside, talk with your students about what they want to write that will cheer up the people who see the messages.
Here are some discussion points to use during the lesson:
What’s something that would make you happy to see on the sidewalk?
How would you feel if you saw these messages?
Even though you may not know the people reading the messages, do you still think that what you write can make a difference?
Bonus Tip: If you’re working with young students who can’t write, spend time together coming up with a few phrases or sayings. Then, you can write them on the sidewalk, and the students can decorate the space with smiley faces, stars, or anything else that goes along with what you wrote.
2- Be mindful In Nature
Although you can be mindful anywhere, there’s something so relaxing about doing it outside. Taking time to be in the moment, observing the natural world can have such a relaxing effect. Here are a few ways to encourage mindfulness outside:
Cloud Watching: Students will look up at the clouds and watch them as they drift by. Encourage students to pay close attention to the cloud’s shape and texture and to notice how this changes as time passes.
Nature Scavenger Hunt: Students will walk around on the playground, etc. looking for certain items, like something blue, something that makes them happy, something round, etc.
5 Senses Exercise: Encourage students to use their 5 senses to notice what’s around them. Students can sit quietly and first, focus on the things they can see. Ask them to look for 3 things they have never noticed before. Then, move on to what they can feel. Give students 15-30 seconds to focus on what the ground feels like, or anything else they can notice with their sense of touch. Next, encourage students to quietly listen to the things they can hear. End the activity by prompting students to consider what they can smell and taste (if anything). At the end of the activity, ask students to share what they noticed.
Want things to be even easier? Check out these 30 guided meditation scripts!
3- Explore Breathing Patterns
One of my favorite coping skills to teach kids - and to use myself - is deep breathing. I love it because it helps to slow down your body and your brain and it can be used any time, anywhere. Plus, there are a lot of fun ways to practice it, especially outside.
One classic way to practice deep breathing is to use bubbles. First, let students blow their bubbles in the conventional way, and then ask them to change their breathing patterns to see how it affects the bubbles. Encourage students to change the speed, direction and force of their breath, and notice how the bubbles change.
Kids can also practice deep breathing by blowing on grass or leaves. Again, encourage them to use different breathing patterns and to notice how the grass or the leaves move differently depending on the type of breathing they do.
This activity can lead to meaningful conversations about coping skills and mindfulness!
4- Affirmation Rock Painting
Positive affirmations are helpful when supporting students with self esteem, growth mindset, or even coping skills in general. They are simple statements students can use to remind themselves of something encouraging. Examples include: “I can do hard things,” “I matter,” etc.
Painting these affirmations on rocks is a great outdoor counseling activity. Students can look for rocks outside, or you can purchase some online that are perfect for this activity. Then, kids can use paint or paint pens to decorate their rocks with affirmations. Encourage students to keep their rocks somewhere visible, such as in their bedrooms, in their lockers, etc.
Bonus Tip: If students don’t have strong writing skills, encourage them to draw a picture that represents the positive affirmation they want to use. If students do not have room to write their whole affirmation, encourage them to write the first letter of each word. For example: “I make the world better” would be “IMTWB.”
5- Release Worries With Bubbles Or Balloons
Unfortunately, many of our students are plagued by worry and anxiety. They may feel like their worries will be around forever and that there isn’t anything they can do about it. After talking to students about coping skills they can use to deal with their worries and anxieties - like talking to an adult, journaling, deep breathing, etc., take them outside to let them symbolically release their worries.
There are two ways you can do this - using bubbles or balloons.
Using Bubbles: Give bubbles to the student(s) you’re working with. Ask them to think about the thing(s) they’re most worried about. Then, as they blow bubbles, ask them to imagine that the bubbles are their worries. Encourage students to notice the bubbles as they float out of sight and pop. Explain that this can represent their worries - that they don’t have to be around forever.
Using Balloons: Students will write their worries on balloons. They can write multiple worries on one balloon, or they can write one worry on each balloon. Then, students will pop their balloons. Like the exercise with the bubbles, this will represent that the worries are not a permanent fixture in the students’ lives.
Taking your students outside during your school counseling lessons can help you switch things up, but that doesn’t mean that time has to be wasted! Use these outdoor counseling activities to help your students learn about important SEL topics like mindfulness and coping skills, while enjoying the great outdoors. Plus, the kids will love you for being the one to say yes when they ask to go outside!
