Breathing Puzzle - This can be a great game for a student that struggles with self control. Puzzles can be frustrating for anyone who is challenged with patience but the goal of this is to teach your student to take a deep breathe whenever they feel frustrated during the completion of the puzzle. The # of pieces to the puzzle should be determined according to what you believe is your students level. It should challenge your student but not be too challenging. You can scaffold it for students that may need to see short successes as motivation. The completion of the puzzle can take an hour or a week depending on how much time you give to that student to work on it each day. I would suggest having an incentive for when your students complete the puzzle. This incentive should energize your students to persevere despite difficulty. Reminding students of the incentive when they are stuck and being a cheerleader to them can be very helpful for times when they need to encourage themselves with future dilemmas they will have to deal with. .
Guided questions: How did the vision/incentive motivate you? How did the breathing exercises help during your times of frustration? When was it the most challenging to continue on? Were there other things that kept you motivated? Have you had other situations that were challenging for you? How did you handle it? What have you done in this situation that can help you with other situations? Did you think that you would ever complete the puzzle? Was the reward worth it? Why is it important to be challenged?