Unit Plan 31 (Grade 3 Counselor): Feelings and Coping Review
Review Grade 3 feelings, body clues, coping tools, and help-seeking with a fun counseling game that builds emotional awareness and support skills.
Focus: Review emotion identification, triggers, body clues, coping strategies, and help-seeking. Students play a review game where they match feelings to body clues, body clues to coping tools, and scenarios to adult-help decisions. The counselor reinforces that students now have a larger toolbox for handling difficult moments.
Grade Level: 3
Subject Area: School Counseling (Feelings • Coping Tools • Help-Seeking Review)
Total Unit Duration: 1–2 weeks, 30 minutes per session
I. Introduction
This Grade 3 counseling lesson reviews the emotional awareness and coping skills students have practiced throughout the year. Students revisit how to name feelings, identify triggers, notice body clues, choose coping tools, and decide when trusted adult support is needed. The counselor emphasizes that strong feelings are normal, and students now have many tools they can use before reacting.
Students participate in a review game, matching activity, scenario sort, or coping toolbox challenge. They connect feelings such as worry, anger, embarrassment, frustration, disappointment, sadness, excitement, and jealousy to body clues and coping strategies. The goal is for students to recognize that different situations may need different tools, and some feelings, worries, peer issues, or safety concerns are too big to handle alone.
Essential Questions
- How can students identify feelings, triggers, and body clues?
- How can body clues help students choose a coping strategy?
- What coping tools can students use in different situations?
- When should students ask a trusted adult for help?
- How can students use their coping toolbox during difficult moments?
II. Objectives and Standards
Learning Objectives — Students will be able to:
- Identify a range of emotions and connect them to possible triggers.
- Recognize body clues that may show a feeling is getting stronger.
- Match coping strategies to different feelings and situations.
- Explain that different problems may need different coping tools, strategies, or support.
- Identify when a feeling, worry, peer issue, or safety concern is too big to handle alone.
- Choose appropriate trusted adult support when help is needed.
- (Optional Session) Apply feelings, coping, and help-seeking skills through a review game, toolbox challenge, or scenario reflection.
Standards Alignment — Grade 3 (ASCA-based Custom)
- C:S2.3a — Identify Emotions, Triggers, and Body Clues
- Recognize a range of emotions, notice body clues, and identify situations that may trigger strong feelings.
- Example: A student says, “When I feel nervous before a presentation, my stomach hurts and my hands get sweaty.”
- C:S2.3b — Choose Coping Strategies for Different Situations
- Select and practice coping tools such as breathing, positive self-talk, taking a break, movement, journaling, problem-solving, or asking for help.
- Example: A student chooses to use positive self-talk and slow breathing before sharing in front of the class.
- C:S2.3c — Recognize When Support Is Needed
- Identify when a feeling, worry, peer issue, or safety concern is too big to handle alone and choose an appropriate trusted adult for support.
- Example: A student says, “If someone keeps bothering me after I ask them to stop, I should tell my teacher or counselor.”
Success Criteria — Student Language
- I can name feelings and possible triggers.
- I can identify body clues that show a feeling is getting stronger.
- I can choose coping tools that fit different situations.
- I can tell when I should ask for help.
- I can use my coping toolbox during difficult moments.