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May is Mental Health Awareness Month, a time when we focus on the important role mental health plays in our daily lives. Teachers can use this opportunity to include resources and activities on mental health, social-emotional awareness, and emotional regulation in their curriculum — just in time for students to carry healthy habits into their summer vacation!
Find ways to touch base with students of all ages using low-prep, research-based Mental Health Awareness Month activities. We’ve also included tips and ideas from TPT Teacher-Authors on implementing mental health activities into your everyday instruction, whether you’re a school counselor, special education teacher, or mainstream instructor.
Teach healthy habits and self-care practices
The first way to bring Mental Health Awareness Month to your classroom is to teach students how to take care of themselves. Basic healthy habits may include washing their hands, eating a healthy breakfast, and getting enough sleep, but you can include emotional self-care practices in your classroom as well.
- Keep positive affirmations on your classroom wall to remind students to speak to themselves calmly.
- Brainstorm a list of activities that help students calm down when they’re feeling anxious or self-critical.
- Let students write themselves an encouraging note or letter to read during hard moments throughout the year.
Teacher Tip
You’re already teaching mental health every time a student struggles through a lab, works with a group, or revises their thinking. The difference is whether you acknowledge it. Call it out. Talk about it. Normalize it. That’s what actually sticks with students.
-Kristin from Teaching Muse
Self-Care Handouts To Promote Mental Health And Wellness For Teachers, Kids, Etc
By Counselor Chelsey
Grade: Any
Subjects: Classroom Community, School Counseling, Social Emotional Learning
It’s easy for you to support the students, staff, and families at your school with Mental Health Month activities on practicing self-care and establishing healthy rhythms. They’re perfect to keep on hand or to send out to encourage wellness.
2026 Goal Setting & Well-Being Journal for Students | SEL & Mental Health
By Teachers Resource Force
Grades 6th-12th
Subjects: Character Education, School Counseling, Social Emotional Learning
Use this well-being journal for yourself or issue it to your students to help them reflect and set targets and track their progress toward building positive habits. The resource includes SEL activities for middle school students to really think about their emotional wellness and to set measurable goals for the future.
Anxiety and Test Prep Brochures for Teens
By The Counseling Teacher Brandy
Grades: 8th-12th
Subjects: School Counseling, School Psychology
These brochures will help students find ways to calm down when they are feeling stressed or when they have an upcoming test. They’ll find tips for taking the test, preparing for the test, and healthy habits to relieve stress before a test, or at any time in the school year.
Have daily SEL check-ins with your students
Mental health is a part of everyone’s daily life, so SEL check-ins should be a daily routine, too. Incorporate activities for Mental Health Awareness Month into your May curriculum, or start them at the beginning of the year to make social-emotional learning (SEL) part of your classroom culture.
- Start your class with a “Roses and Thorns” discussion for students to share the positive and negative parts of their day so far.
- Use stickers with different colors or faces for students to put on their desks to indicate when they’re having a hard day.
- Have students keep an emotions journal that tracks their stress level, reflects on daily events and struggles, and notes their progress in important parts of their lives.
Over time, journaling becomes a safe outlet for students to process their feelings and build self-awareness in a calm, low-pressure way. I also make it very clear that this is just for THEM. I will never force students to share what they complete (although they are always welcome to).
Daily Social Emotional Learning Journal Prompts for Coping Skill Development
By Root and Sprout Learning
Grades: 3rd-8th
Subjects: Character Education, School Counseling
This SEL bell ringer (or morning journal) resource helps improve student self-regulation and coping skills through 30 thought-provoking journal prompts. Seamlessly blending ELA reading and writing with SEL and mental health curriculum, students will begin to deepen their understanding of their resiliency and how to strengthen their coping strategies.
Worry Workbook: Worry Activities & Journal for Anxiety Management
By Counselor Keri
Grades: 2nd-5th
Subjects: School Counseling, School Psychology
Looking for a great worry coping skills tool for school counseling and the classroom? This printable worry workbook includes SEL activities for elementary students to explore what worry is, how worry affects the brain, the physical experience of worry, and effective strategies for dealing with worry at school and at home.
French Mental Health Check-In – Poster & Google Slides Template
By Parfaitement Parnell
Grades: K-10th
Subjects: Classroom Community, French
Students can check in about their mental health every day using this French language template. It fits well with other Mental Health Awareness Month activities, allowing students to track their moods and emotions in an easy, no-stress way each day.
Let students express their emotions creatively
Some of the most effective ideas for Mental Health Awareness Month are creative assignments.
Art can be a quiet way for students to process what they’re going through … and even small, consistent opportunities for creative expression can make a big difference.
Art, music, dance, and theater are safe places for students of all ages to express themselves, no matter what emotions they’re experiencing.
- Assign students an “Emotional Art” project in which they can use any artistic medium they’d like to express their current feelings.
- Have students make a playlist with songs that cover the range of feelings they’re going through, along with explanations of why each song belongs on the list.
- Encourage groups to design Mental Health Awareness Month posters to place around campus and remind their peers to stay attuned to their mental health.
Teacher Tip
Children love talking about themselves! Acting out feelings and scenarios helps young students get involved with trying out calming strategies, instead of listening to a lecture about them.
-Michelle from Cozy in Kindergarten
Positive Affirmations: Coloring Journal & Affirmations – Health and Wellness
By Allie Szczecinski with Miss Behavior
Grade: Any
Subjects: Health, School Counseling, School Psychology
Boost self-esteem in students with a positive-mantra coloring journal and positive affirmation cards. This resource includes 25 coloring pages with inspiring quotes, as well as 25 half-page cards with watercolor backgrounds.
Mental Health Coloring Pages for Kids: 8 Exciting Designs for Fast Finishers
By Glitter Meets Glue – Art Projects and Crafts
Grades: 2nd-5th
Subjects: Classroom Community, Coloring Pages, School Counseling
These mental health coloring pages are great for school counselors looking for a hands-on activity for children during their sessions, as well as teachers in need of social-emotional learning resources. They’re great for early finisher work, brain breaks, or as quiet time activities.
School Counseling Bundle: Resilience, Optimism, Gratitude and Wellness
By WholeHearted School Counseling
Grade: 1st-8th
Subjects: Character Education, School Counseling
This Woodland Wellness Warriors bundle was created to help young people foster hope, optimism, resilience, and strength-based practices into their lives. It includes prompts to use with a JENGA game, a SCOOT lesson and game, a board game, and conversation starters.
Guide students through emotional regulation techniques
Whether you’re teaching preschoolers to name their feelings or introducing mindfulness activities for high school students, emotional regulation is a skill with which students of all grades could use some help. Help learners of all ages discover how to break out of disruptive emotional cycles and how to feel their feelings in a healthy, controlled way.
- Use deep breathing exercises during stressful moments in the classroom, including testing days or when class behavior has been on the rowdier side.
- Take a look at some calm-down corner ideas to create a safe emotional haven right in your classroom.
- Teach students why their feelings cause their bodies to react in certain ways, with age-appropriate explanations of the physiology of emotions and regulation.
Teaching about the brain and emotions has been a game-changer. Once kids understand how their brain processes information and that their feelings all have jobs, they are better able to understand how to regulate their emotions and control the situation instead of having their big emotions control what happens next.
Mindfulness Activities Guided Meditation – Calming Strategies & Self Regulation
By Bright Futures Counseling
Grades: 1st-6th
Subjects: School Counseling
Looking for a way to help your students practice mindfulness? Each of these guided meditations has a theme to help your students become calmer and more focused, and they are great to use with small groups, individuals, or the entire class.
Emotional Intelligence & Self-Regulation Activities for SEL – Understand Emotion
By Mikey D Teach – SELebration Learning
Grades: 3rd-6th
Subjects: Classroom Community, Social Emotional Learning
Help your students learn about and understand their emotions, how to self-regulate, and more! This resource gives you the opportunity to talk about emotions with your kids. They will identify emotions within themselves, identify emotions within others, learn how to deal with their emotions, and make plans to self-regulate.
Social Skills Lessons for Managing Emotions – Feelings, Coping Strategies & SEL
By Pathway 2 Success
Grades: 5th-10th
Subjects: School Counseling, Social Emotional Learning
Use these lessons to teach older kids how to manage their emotions, including understanding emotions, using self-control, dealing with anger, dealing with disappointments, how actions impact others, and more. This resource includes 10 core lessons, each with several activities for extended practice.
Build kindness into your classroom culture
Mental Health Awareness Month activities are valuable to your students, but when you use them throughout the year, they can be just as valuable to you! Instructors who run a low-stress, kindness-centered classroom have a chance to focus on their own mental health, which can help prevent teacher burnout in future school years.
- Set up a student compliment system for peers to write nice things about their classmates.
- Stand at your door as students enter and say something kind about each person who enters.
- Implement brain breaks for high school students to build friendship and camaraderie with their peers.
Teacher Tip
Have an approach that is calm, empathetic, and patient. Teachers are a student’s anchor in a sea of overwhelm. Make sure you (the teacher) can add perspective and value to distressed students.
-Patty Ann from Patty Ann’s Pet Project
Stress Management Bulletin Board | Rainbow Theme
By College Counselor Studio
Grades: 4th-7th
Subjects: Health, School Counseling
Coping with stress can be challenging. With this bulletin board, you can provide healthy stress management tips and skills for students during finals, testing season, or the new year! Tips include reducing anxiety, anger management, and counselor support.
Mental Health Awareness Month Reading Comprehension Passages Activities SEL
By Student Savvy
Grades: 5th-9th
Subjects: Close Reading, Health, Reading Strategies
These reading passages about the different topics of mental health awareness are a perfect way to bring social-emotional learning into your reading comprehension lessons. Use the passages as part of a reading assessment, or challenge students to reflect on each one in regular reading assignments.
Help students monitor and improve their mental health with TPT
This May, include a variety of Mental Health Awareness Month activities to help students with anxiety, stress, and the everyday challenges of emotional wellness and regulation. With a set of high-quality, low-prep resources for Mental Health Awareness Month, you’ll equip an entire generation of students with the tools they need to identify and manage their emotions — and you’ll make a real difference in their lives, tool.