This giveaway is now closed. Congratulations to our winner, Ann Brown! This month we’re giving away all three books in the Zach Rules series. Each book presents a single, simple story line involving everyday problems common with kids ages 5 to 8. Our lucky winner will receive Zach Apologizes, Zach Gets Frustrated, and Zach Makes Mistakes.
To Enter: Leave a comment below telling us how you help kids learn and practice problem-solving skills. This giveaway is now closed.
For additional entries, leave a separate comment below for each of the following tasks that you complete:
Each comment counts as a separate entry—that’s four chances to win! Entries must be received by midnight, August 26, 2016.
The winner will be contacted via email on or around August 29, 2016, and will need to respond within 72 hours to claim his or her prize or another winner will be chosen. This giveaway is in no way affiliated with, administered, or endorsed by Facebook, Twitter, or Pinterest. Winner must be a U.S. resident, 18 years of age or older.
We welcome your comments and suggestions. Share your comments, stories, and ideas below, or contact us. All comments will be approved before posting, and are subject to our comment and privacy policies.
© 2016 by Free Spirit Publishing. All rights reserved.
I am a cross categorical special education teacher in a school that has 4K-8th grade. Being a cross categorical teacher, I often times have students with social emotional difficulties. I explicitly teach these students individually, in small groups as well as in the general education classroom.
I like using the chat packs in morning meetings. Topics help students share their own thoughts plus be able to comment on others.
I always like to use materials (books, worksheets, crafts.. ) when I am working with kids. I find kids enjoy working with them rather than just traditional therapy talk.
We use activities to teach kids these skills. Would love the books to add to our programming efforts!
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I help my kiddos with problem solving by first demonstrating and using self talk to explain what I am doing. I use breathe first, then ask for help or solve your problem if you can. I also read books that the children can relate to, and act out scenarios in dramatic play with them.
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I ask my children to express how they would feel in various situations
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I use What ifs? with my kids to problem solving skills
Not only does my grandson Zach recommend this series but as a therapist they have been helpful with many children I work with.
I use puppets and dramatic skits to role play problem solving. After I model the children reenact the script using the puppets to practice the skills. Then we generalize it in the classroom.
I work in a Care for Newcomer Children and teaching rules and problem solving is very challenging most of the time. At the same time is important for the age before 5 because these are the years when the child’s character is formed.
These books will be a great help for our program.
I’m a Youth Worker in a school grades 4-6 & also work in a group home with kids ages 4-12 years old. Always teaching kids Social skills and Life Skills.
I use Free Spirit Books because they are realistic and share a powerful message. My kindergarten students love them.
I will love to win these books for my students. As a teacher I see how children struggle in social/emotional phases. So these books are are going to bring more positive effect on their learning process.
Was sitting here searching for something similar to this. Sparked some ideas. One of which is, I really need these books!
I teach problem solving and social skills in small groups and indiv sessions
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I’m a School Counselor so teaching problem-solving skills is what I do most of the time. I like to help kids see that struggling is normal and that is can be overcome. I teach them replacement behaviors and coping skills, and then share those skills with teachers and parents so they can reinforce their use. I would LOVE to have the Zach Rules series to use with my students. I am split over three schools and I serve 1100 students. Your books would be a huge asset to them.
I help students learn problem solving skills everyday by requiring them to talk through their issues and giving them a safe place to share concerns and to work through strategies to improve relationships.
Love this contest. Thank you.
I am a speech-language pathologist and target social-emotional/self-regulation skills with many of the children I see. I use a combination of tools/programs (including the ZONES of Regulation, Conscious Discipline, and children’s books). Many of them can “hear” message/lesson better when presented through a picture book – these look like they would be a great addition to my therapy library. Thank you for the opportunity to win a set!
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We roll play and read social stories!
I am a school social worker working in a two buildings reaching k-5 students. I help children learn social skills and coping skills through classroom push in, school wide Social Emotional Learning rotation classes, small groups, and individual work. The Zach Rules series looks awesome! It would be a natural fit in my work with students.
We use the “Nurtured Heart ❤” program for defining our strengths, our greatness. We share mindfulness breathing and calming techniques with our preschoolers; we use “Zones” for labeling emotions (they really love and understand how the colors identify emotions); and we use many Incredible Years concepts, esp. those of using our ‘ignore muscle’ and asking ourselves “Is it a BIG problem or a little one?” We also use IY Problem Solving Cards for visuals in discussing problem solving.
I work in a public library and families love to share these kinds of books with their children. They aren’t “preachy” and they open up great dialogue and communication between parent (grandparent, teacher or caregiver) and child.
I am a counselor with Youth and Family Alternatives (YFA). YFA is one of the area’s leading providers of social services to children and families, and are dedicated to strengthening the family throughout YFA’s many programs.
The program that I am involved in is the Caring School Community (CSC). CSC is a nationally recognized, research-based program for grades K–6 that builds classroom and schoolwide community while developing students’ social and emotional skills and competencies. CSC strengthens students’ connectedness to school—an important element for increasing academic motivation and achievement and for reducing violence and delinquency. CSC consists of the four components: class meetings, cross-age buddies program, home side activities, and schoolwide community-building activities, all in which help students develop respect for each other and take ownership for their learning and behavior.
I am a librarian for families of children with special needs. We have a large number of children on the autism spectrum and books about emotions would be a great help to our families.
I am administrator for an EHS/ HS program of 1454 children and families. I am training my teachers about how to help children learn about self- regulation and problem solving skills. The Zack Rules series are a great help in supporting children to understand what to do in situations.
I provide coaching to child care providers and help them with social emotional lesson plans into which these books would fit perfectly.
We work on Conflict resolution and teaching children the skills they can use when in a negative situation (Tell the person what you do not like that they are doing, walk away, and finally find help). We want the children to at least try to handle the situation on their own first and then when all else fails, go get help from an adult. Following on Facebeook and Pinterest! 😀
I help younger students to make connections between how they feel and appropriate ways to handle those feelings if it starts to become unsafe.
We take a step back with the children and talk about the situation. We have them describe their feelings and reasons for the behavior. We help them with the words that they are trying to say. If we need a moment to take a break from the chaos, we take a break.
I teach 7th grade students and each day the students are given opportunities to problem solve. I challenge them to go beyond what they see at face value and to dig deeper,using analyzing techniques.to develop a reasonable judgment.
I work with students who have LD and ED so often times social-emotional needs must always be met. The first way that I work with students at the beginning of the year is to talk about their ‘ strengths, what they love to do, then ease them on to their dislikes and towards what they want to improve on by the end of the year.
We have the children role play the pro-social behavior until they are able to successful do it on their own.
I help coordinate a social emotional program for grades prek to 5. We often use literature to teach skills so these books would be ideal
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I work one on one with students in my library as incidents occur, trying to front-load with appropriate books before incidents occur.
I am VPI teacher working for kindercare education for pre-k.
I am a trainer with the Positive Discipline Association. I facilitate workshops for parents and educators. I encourage participants to purchase books for their students and children that promote social-emotional development. These books would be terrific hands on examples for workshop participants.
Hi, I’m the director of a preschool in Cheyenne Wy. I would like to receive the 3 books you are offering. I feel they would be benificial to our center. We try to start teaching them early how to express their feelings. We deal wih children from 6 wks to 6. I hope you will consider us as recipient’s of the series of books. Thank You. Michele McCoy Christ Lutheran Church AKIDemy.
Over the years, I have tried many things to help my students with their problem-solving skills. I have used the Second Step program, which teaches about understanding your feelings and the feelings of others, as well as how to solve various problem using pictures and skits. Also, when reading a story to my students, I will stop when I get to a problem in the story. We will discuss ways the character could solve the problem, and also how we could solve the problem of it happened to us.
I do early childhood mental health therapy and these books are great to share with the families I work with. The children enjoy the pictures and the stories and they don’t even know they are learning some techniques that they can use!
I am teaching preschoolers social emotional training through play. I am always looking at books that will help show and demonstrate feelings and emotions that they can relate too. When they see someone else having the same feelings they do and how they worked through them it helps them relate and work on those feelings. We refer back to many of our stories through the day to help them remember.
I have a family child care in my home and care for 5 preschoool children. I use story time to teach children the important social skills they need to get along with each other. There are many books that share important lessons and this series would be a great addition to our lending library. Thanks so much!
These are great! I often work with my kids on taking a deep breath when they are upset. I focus a lot on self-calming techniques with them. 🙂
We have been using books from free spirit since our kids were very small starting with the bord books in the best behavior series, we also have a lot of the being the best me series, this would be another exciting series to includ in our home library
I help kids by having social groups and working with the kids on how to control thier emotions
As our grandchildren continue to grow and mature, we enjoy time spent having fun and also reading. Any time we can read a book or article that talks about personal development, we all win. We have found that they enjoy these books differently when they share them with us. We can also mention things of interest to mom and dad who are also able to follow up.
Last year I took a training for and began teaching my students about mindfulness. Since then I have added a new “first step” to problem-solving, which is BREATHE FIRST. Knowing that the brain downshifts when it is stressed, it is so important to get oxygen to the brain so that functioning can return to the prefrontal cortex (the “problem-solving” part of the brain as I explain it) so that students can be more effective and efficient with the rest of the problem-solving process.