I don't know if you've noticed, but teaching can be an emotional rollercoaster.
Now that I mostly teach primary (kindergarten) physical education, that has never been more true. Five-year-olds aren't just three-foot(ish) versions adults: they are tiny little wonders with developing minds. Part of that development includes emotional development, which varies greatly from kid to kid.
What I've quickly come to realize is that my primary students don't have a whole lot of space in between what they experience and how they react to it. In fact, it's usually pretty simple to gain a general sense of what's happening on the inside just by observing what is happening on the outside:
Victor Frankl famously wrote that "Between stimulus and response there is a space. In that space is our power to choose our response. In our response lies our growth and our freedom." What I want for my students is for them to feel empowered to choose how to respond to the emotions they experience, and not have those emotions play them as puppets 18,000 times per 30-minute lessons.
This is why I have invested time over the years learning how to support my students' social and emotional learning in physical education class. In my opinion, the most comprehensive set of tools out there are those shared through the RULER approach to SEL.
If you read my blog, then you know that I've already explored how the RULER approach can live in PE. I've even developed a set of printable resources that I've previously used in my teaching.
However, now that I mostly teach the youngest students in my school, I quickly realized that I needed to reimagine my use of the RULER approach – specifically the Mood Meter – to make its tools as accessible as possible for my primary students.
My vision was one that I have been thinking about for a long time: a bench where students can physically move themselves through the steps of emotional self-regulation.
After getting the OK from my principal to get crafty with one of the benches in our gym, I got to work on bringing the Breather Bench to life.
The Breather Bench is a dedicated bench in my gym where students can go to self-regulate.
The Breather Bench has four steps, each with its own set of visuals (which have been Modge Podge’d to the bench itself):
When students arrive at The Breather Bench, they are presented with two resources: a graphic featuring four emotional zones and a two-minute timer (which is stored in a cup that I screwed into the bottom of the bench).
The goal of step one is to take a breather: to create some space between how you are feeling and how that feeling is causing you to think, act, and behave.
I’ve found that the physical sand timers serve as a great focus point for kids to allow themselves to separate a bit from the emotions that are causing them to be unregulated, and I often see students taking themselves to the bench for two minutes before returning to our activities.
The next step is for students to assess how their emotions are living in their bodies. To do this, they reflect on two distinct sensations:
❤️ Pleasantness: Is your body feeling happy or hurt?
⚡️ Energy: Is your body feeling wired or tired?
Both of these sensations are rated on a scale from 1-10, which students mark with glass beads that are stored in a cup under the bench.
Now that students have created some space between the emotions they are experiencing and themselves and have identified how those emotions are being physically experienced in their bodies, it’s time to give those emotions a label.
To do this, they will get to use the Mood Meter Wall Chart that I designed and have featured on my gym wall above the appropriate space on The Breather Bench. Here’s how I teach my students how to use the chart:
Use the “Happy ↔ Hurt” and “Tired ↔ Wired” ratings that you took in step three to plot your emotion on the Mood Meter.
Decide if that emotion resonates with how you are feeling. If it does, then you have successfully labelled your emotion!
If the emotion does not resonate, look at its neighbours (i.e. the emotions directly touching the one you landed on) and see if any of those resonate.
Finally, the fourth step of The Breather Bench allows students to decide whether they are ready to return to our lesson or if they need more time to sit with their emotions. It’s important to remember that both options are valid.
When students are feeling ready to switch gears, I created a set of 24 Calm Cards that can help them do so. Each card features a strategy (requiring no or very limited equipment) that can help the student regulate their emotion so that they can experience wanted feelings.
I introduced the Breather Bench to my students last winter, doing so one step per lesson at a time.
As expected with anything new in class, lesson one involved every student fighting over getting to use the timers, getting upset when they couldn't, and then not having a timer to help them manage those emotions.
That said, I stuck with it and eventually magic started to happen.
The most curious thing I found was that students often didn't feel the need to move beyond the first step of the Breather Bench when they would choose to take themselves there on their own. The two-minute timer proved to be a great way for most students to create that space, take a breath, and then get on with their learning.
I was also surprised at how often I would find students at the Mood Meter chart, just talking about emotions. They seemed to really enjoy the emoji (which I'm grateful for, because making 100 custom emoji was a pain), and they liked talking about how they were feeling.
Finally, the Calm Cards were also a hit. I even had a few parents email me asking if they could have a set for at home... at the request of their children.
I'm taking all of this of evidence that students want to feel empowered when it comes to their emotions. When students react in ways that don't align with their best selves, it bothers them. The Breather Bench not only equips students with a system with which they can regulate their emotions, it also provides them with an opportunity to practice autonomy in challenging moments.
One last thing I wanted to mention – and this is something I told my students when I introduced them to the system – is that the Breather Bench is a tool, never a consequence. Even though I'll sometimes ask a students to "go take a breather", it's never meant as a punishment. In those moments, they might be too emotionally heightened to even realize that they are emotionally heightened, and I'm there to help. In order to support my students autonomy, the Breather Bench must remain something they can use and never become something that happens to them.
If you are interested in bringing the Breather Bench system to your gym, I've made it available as a download on the Visuals page!
The download includes:
Let me know if you intend to bring The Breather Bench to your teaching!
Happy Teaching!
