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SELF-CONTROL

Games That Teach Preschool Children Self-Control

Many of the ideas listed comes from a study conducted by Tominey &
McClelland (2011) in Early Education and Development (Volume 22, Issue 3).

1. Red Light, Green Light: One child is the

stoplight, the other children are the cars.
When the stoplight yells “Green light!” the
children run towards the stoplight. When
the stoplight yells “Red light!” all the
children must stop. If a child doesn’t stop,
they must go back to the starting line.
2. Red Light, Green Light (with a twist):
Start playing the game the original way.
Once kids get used to the original rules,
reverse them so that “Red light!” means
go and “Green light!” means freeze.
3. Red Light, Purple Light: This game
follows the same concept as “red light,
green light”. First assign “go” and “stop”
to colors other than red and green
([Link] and brown). Use construction
paper as a visual. Alternate the “stop” and
“go” colors. Once the children grow
accustomed to the colors and their
corresponding meaning, make changes so
that children must once again regulate
their responses.
4. Loud or Quiet: Children have to perform
an action either loud or quiet. First, pick
an action (i.e. stomp your feet. The leader
says loud, and the children stomp loud.
When the leader says “quiet, the kids
stomp quietly.)
5. Freeze Dance: Kids dance when the
music plays and freeze when it stops.
Dance quickly for fast-tempo songs, slowly
for slow-tempo songs. And then reverse
the cues: Fast music = slow dancing. Slow
music = fast dancing. (“I gotta feeling”
song is in the folder).
6. Follow My Clap. In this game the leader
creates a clapping pattern. Children have
to listen and repeat the pattern
7. Color Matching Freeze: In this version
of the freeze game, kids don’t just stop
dancing when the music stops. First, they
find a colored mat and stand on it. Then,
before they freeze, they perform a special
dance step. There are several, differently-
colored mats on the floor, and each color
is linked with a different dance step.
8. Conducting an Orchestra: Musical
instruments needed. The teacher will have
a long stick or ruler and will act like an
orchestra leader, conducting when they
will play their instruments. The teacher
will wave the conductor’s wand quickly or
slowly and have students play according
to their movements. Then, the teacher will
have students override their automatic
response by indicating that students
should play slowly when she waves the
conductors wand quickly, and vice versa.
9. Drum Beats: A teacher tells kids to
respond to different drum cues with
specific body movements. For example,
kids might hop when they hear a fast drum
beat and crawl when they hear a slow
drum beat. After a while, kids are asked to
reverse the cues.
10. Red Rover: in this classic game two
teams line up opposite of each other, no
more than 30 feet apart. The first team
agrees to call one player from the
opposite team, and chants, “Red Rover
Red Rover, send (players name) over!”
The person called runs to the other line
and tries to break the chain (formed by
linking hands.)
11. Dance Party!
The teacher puts on some fun music and
then starts to dance. The students have to
follow her dance routine exactly, no
matter how silly. After 30 seconds or so
the teacher calls out a student’s name.
That student begins to make up his own
dance moves that the rest of the class
must follow. The teacher then becomes
the judge. Any student she catches not
doing the moves exactly has to sit down.
Each student should get thirty seconds or
 a minute to lead the dance before the
teacher calls another student to lead.
12. Body Part Mix Up: The leader calls out a
body part the children must touch. For
example the leader says elbow, and kids
must touch elbow. Once you go through
one round commands, mix things up and
change the rules. Now, when you call out
a body part you must touch a different
body part. For instance, instruct kids that
when you say “touch your knees” they
need to touch their shoulders.
13. Count to Ten: The teacher stands at the
front of the class and raises both hands
above her head, spread open and facing
the class. The students raise their hands
over their heads, fingers spread, and
facing the teacher. The teacher begins
counting slowly from one to ten, and at
ten lowers her hands to her sides. The
class follows until everyone is back in the
position they started in.
14. Elephant Stampede: The teacher puts a
hand to their ear and say “What;s that I
hear?” The class responds by saying
“Elephant Stampede!” The teacher then
says, “Where are the elephants? I can
barely hear them.” The class responds
“Far away!” and begins quietly stomping
their feet to mimic the sound of elephants
stomping off in the distance. The teacher
repeats their lines, adjusting for how close
the elephants are until the herd arrives in
the classroom. Once the ‘herd’ arrives,
kids can stomp and make noise until the
teacher quiets them down by saying; “Oh,
good, they’re going away.” The kids stomp
their feet more softly. They continue to
listen and respond to the teacher until the
herd leaves the classroom.
15. Staring Contest: Two kids face each
other. They can stand or sit. They stare
each other down without moving, talking
or changing their facial expressions. The
first person to do so loses.
16. Duck Duck Goose
17. Simon Says: When Simon says, “Simon
says jump!” the children must jump. But if
Simon only says, “Jump!” and somebody
jumps, that person must sit out for the
rest of the game. The last person standing
becomes the new Simon. Another
 excellent game for developing self-
regulation because children must listen
carefully, pay attention, and follow
directions.
18. Shake-a-Long: Kids are giving
instruments they can shake (i.e. maracas,
tambourines, rice in a bottle, etc.) They
shake their instruments as the music
plays. When the music stops they stop
shaking.
19. Ring Around The Rosie
20. Ready Set Go! Have the kids line up.
When the leader says Ready, Set, Go,
everyone starts walking. Everyone stops
when the leader says STOP. Next, the
leader says Ready, Set, Goose. Nobody
moves. Then the leader says Ready, Set,
Gorrilla. Nobody moves. Leader says
Ready, Set, Go! Everyone goes again. You
can change this to whatever wording you
want. The purpose is to have the children
waiting to move until a certain word is
said out loud.
21. Follow the Leader: the leader calls out
actions that the children must follow the
actions exactly.
22. London Bridge
23. Mother May I? One child is the ‘mother’
and stands facing away from a line of kids,
She then chooses a child (at random or in
order), and gives them a direction. These
follow a pattern, such as, (Mary, you may
take ‘x’ giant/regular/baby steps
forword/backward.
24. Hide and Seek
25. Mirror Game: Kids partner up and take
turns making different faces and their
partners must imitate them. For an added
challenge, students can imitate one
another’s’ body movements.
26. Color Ball by Youth Therapy Source. This
can be adapted for preschoolers by using
different color construction paper instead
of writing the name of the color on an
index card.
Kids partner up and take turns making
different faces and their partners must
imitate them. For an added challenge,
students can imitate one another’s’ body
movements.
27. Freeze Tag.
[Link] game: The idea is that you blow some
bubbles in front of your students and let them
go crazy, popping them all over the place. And
on a second turn, they must practice self-control
and not reach out to touch or play with the
bubbles at all. SUCH a clever idea for getting kids
to FEEL self-control! I am going to use my mega
bubble blower machine to get some serious
bubble time!
Here are 30 of our favorite self-control activities and resources for kids and
parents!

1. Blow bubbles. It’s no secret that taking deep breaths can help restore a
sense of calm when big emotions hit, and a great way to teach this concept is
to have children blow bubbles when they’re feeling anxious. Start by giving
each child their own bottle of mini bubbles to practice, and once they’ve
mastered the concept, have them practice blowing bubbles without the wand.
This will give them an effective coping strategy they can use when big
emotions threaten to take over during the school day (and beyond)!

2. The marshmallow test. Give students marshmallow or any candy. They

can smell it, touch it, feel it…. But not to eat it without being informed by the
teacher.

3. Watch Sesame Street. If your child loves Sesame Street, this clip with
Cookie Monster will get her laughing while also showing the importance of
resisting temptation and being patient. (The video is in the folder)

4. Calm Down Jars. Learn how to make calm down jars using nothing other
than glue , water, and glitter , why they are effective, along with 17 DIY recipes
you can make at home with your kids HERE . (or watch the video “just brearh”
in the folder).

5. Red Light, Green Light. You probably remember playing this as a kid, and
it’s a fun game to help kids work on self-control. Each time you yell ‘green
light’, your kids can get up, dance, and act silly, but as soon as you yell ‘red
light’, they must stand perfectly still. It’s heaps of fun!

6. Self-Control Task Cards. This set on Teachers Pay Teachers contain 60

task cards to talk about self-control and promote deeper and more critical
thinking.
7. Simon Says. Kids love this game, and you can make it extra motivating by
giving each of your children a turn to be ‘Simon’ as a reward for good behavior,
helping around the house, completing homework, etc.

8. Divide students in different animal groups and then ask them to move
differently according to their group name.
9. Musical Chairs. Another great activity to teach self-control is musical
chairs. Make a circle of chairs in the center of the room, ensuring there is one
less chair than there are kids participating in the game, and then switch on
some fun music. The idea is for the kids to run in circles around the chairs
while the music is playing, and once the music stops they must quickly find a
chair to sit on. The person left standing is out of the game, and another chair is
taken away until there is only one chair (and one winner) left.

10. Don’t Bite. Similar to the Marshmallow Game, this one involves sticks of
gum and is a bit harder from a self-control point of view. The idea is to place
the stick of gum onto the child’s tongue, and then see how long they can go
without chewing it.

11. Organize a ‘Feelings and Emotions’ Scavenger Hunt. Mosswood

Connections put this idea together , and I think it’s a great way to help kids
understand their emotions while also practicing important social skills.
You can ask students to show different emotions after showing them the emojis
and after discuss the document in the folder.

FEELINGS AND EMOTIONS SCAVENGER HUNT

This Emotions Scavenger Hunt is a great way to build emotional

awareness, perspective taking, whole body listening, and social
skills. By focusing on other people in a relaxed environment, it takes
 the pressure off by eliminating the need to interact while
experiencing the various feelings that need to be explored,
recognized and defined. After all, people watching has been a
popular sport throughout history.

TARGET SKILLS FOR YOUR FEELINGS AND EMOTIONS SCAVENGER HUNT:

 Identifying Facial Expressions
 Social-Emotional
 Visual Scanning

12. Turn Taking Games. Kids love to play games, and getting them involved
in ones that require them to wait until it’s their turn can be a great way to
teach self-control. Some of our family favorites include Pop the Pig , Toilet
Trouble , Don’t Wake Hank , and Lil’ Lemonade Stand-Off .

13. Create a Calm Down Box. Another way to teach children self-control is to
ensure they have tools readily available when big emotions strike. Fidget toys ,
squeeze balls , and chewing gum are all great classroom-appropriate ideas that
can help reduce feelings of anxiety and restore a sense of calm.

14. Zones Bingo. If you’re familiar with the Zones of Regulation program ,
you’ll love this Bingo game by lunchbuddiesplus !

Zones Bingo!!
BY LUNCHBUDDIESPLUS ON JANUARY 9, 2013

In order to understand how our emotions influence our behavior as well as the behavior of others,
we started the Zones of Regulation (Leah M. Kuypers,MA Ed. OTR/L). Today we talked about the
four zones: BLUE(tired, sick, sleepy), YELLOW(frustrated, worried, silly, loss of some control),
RED(mad, mean, yelling, out of control) and the most important zone GREEN(happy, calm, focused
and ready to learn).
After discussing the zones with some vivid facial expressions, we played a game of ZONES BINGO.

This was fun and helped us find areas of emotional regulation that may be preventing us from being
in the GREEN zone. One student was yawning during the activity and we talked about that being in
the Blue Zone. He told us he was frequently tired.
We will continue the ZONES program to give students a method to understand, monitor and regulate
their own personal zone. We want everyone’s favorite color to be GREEN!!

15. Don’t Laugh. A friend of mine does this ALL THE TIME with her daughter,
and it’s a real hoot. They take turns trying to make the other person laugh.
They aren’t allowed to touch each other and must maintain eye contact, and it
is HILARIOUS to watch both of them in action.

16. Twister. Twister is a great game to help develop a child’s gross motor
skills and work cooperatively with his or her peers, and it also offers a way to
teach self-control. Don’t own the game? You can buy the classic Twister set
here .

17. Self-Control Circles. If you’re in search of some calming, zen-like

activities to teach your kids how to distinguish between the things they can
and cannot control, this self-control circle craft on Teachers Pay Teachers is for
you!
18. Read. There are lots of great children’s books that are fun to read AND
touch on the topic of self-control. Our favorites are No, David! , My Mouth is a
Volcano , I Just Want to Do It My Way! , and I Can’t Believe You Said That! . (2
stories are in the folder)

19. Playdough. Engaging in a good sensory activity with your child can help
calm even the biggest emotions, while also offering an opportunity to talk with
your child, get a sense for his or her feelings, and brainstorm better behaviors
to use in the future. I’ve always found playing with playdough to be relaxing,
but coloring is pretty high on my list as well!

20. Guided Meditation. There are so many great (and free) guided
meditation clips available on YouTube. Here’s one of my favorites! (The balloon
video is in the folder).

21. Jenga. Ah, I love Jenga ! It requires great skill to remove and place blocks
on the top of a tower, but what few people realize is that it also takes a lot of
self-control for impulsive children not to knock the tower down while playing!