Social-Emotional Learning (SEL) is the foundation for emotional health and healthy relationships throughout students' lives.
This series of engaging and creative lesson plans can be easily adapted for distance learning and are designed to teach students responsible decision-making, mindful self-awareness, conflict resolution skills, positive self-talk, and emotional self-regulation.
1. Practice Yoga and Meditation as a Class Lesson
Practicing yoga and meditation can help students to develop their emotional awareness through breathing and mindfulness while enhancing their body confidence and mental calm. Meditation is also a wonderful way to foster a growth mindset as it encourages students to stay in the present moment and take on challenges one step at a time.
Age Group: Elementary, Middle School
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2. All About Me Writing Exercise
This self-awareness development activity challenges students to create a list about themselves, with a different strength, talent, or quality for each letter of the alphabet.
Age Group: Elementary
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3. Take a Mindful Moment
Mindfulness is the capacity to pay attention to the present moment as well as one's own thoughts and emotions with acceptance and non-judgment. Thus, it's an essential skill for students to cultivate in order to learn emotional self-regulation.
Age Group: Elementary, Middle School, Highschool
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4. Practice Goal Setting with SMART Goals
Setting SMART (specific, measurable, attainable, relevant, timely) goals is a wonderful way to empower students to reach their personal and academic potential.
Age Group: Elementary, Middle School, High School
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5. Try a Fine Motor SEL Lesson
This fine motor emotions activity teaches students the helpful RULER acronym for cultivating emotional intelligence: Recognizing, Understanding, Labeling, Expressing, and Regulating.
Age Group: Preschool, Elementary
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6. Practice a Read Aloud
Practicing reading aloud helps students develop confidence in their communication and public speaking abilities, skills that will serve them well in their daily lives.
Age Group: Elementary
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7. Teach Kids How to Apologize
Knowing how to apologize graciously is an important emotional skill for developing positive relationships.
Age Group: Elementary, Middle School
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8. Read a Book About Managing Anger
This popular book teaches kids how to deal wisely with anger instead of reverting to aggressive behavior. Why not have a whole-class discussion to reinforce student learning about this important common goal?
Age Group: Preschool, Elementary
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9. Create a Calm Down Corner
This collection of resources teaches students how to self-regulate their emotions and provides them with strategies for calming down, including taking a brain break and practicing balloon breathing. Why not create a calm-down corner in your classroom to support students with these core lessons?
Age Group: Elementary
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10. Create a Worry Box
A Worry Box is a place where kids can store away frustrations, challenging emotions, or fearful thoughts. It's a wonderful way to develop students' emotion management skills by helping them express their feelings and take control of stressful situations.
Age Group: Elementary
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11. Teach the Zones of Regulation
This free Zones of Regulation printable package includes lessons on expected versus unexpected behavior, how to determine the actual size of a problem, and how students' actions can affect what zone other people are in. Learning about the four zones is an evidence-based way of practicing healthy emotional expression and building strong relationships in the classroom.
Age Group: Elementary
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12. Practice Mindful Coloring
Mindful coloring has been shown to reduce stress, improve sleep and develop attention skills. Try putting on some relaxing music and turn it into a class-wide activity!
Age Group: Elementary, Middle School
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13. Play a Game of Emotion Charades
Playing a game of emotional charades is a perfect cooperative learning opportunity that encourages elementary students to develop social awareness, eye contact, and social competence skills.
Age Group: Elementary
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14. Learn About Forgiveness Through Song
Learning to forgive is an important social-emotional skill that will serve children throughout their entire lives. This video, song, and drawing activity helps young learners develop healthy decision-making skills when faced with social conflicts.
Age Group: Elementary
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15. Feeling Playdough Mats
By replicating the emotions on these vibrant mats with playdough, students can develop emotional learning skills that will serve them well in skillfully expressing their feelings throughout the school day.
Age Group: Preschool, Elementary
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16. Watch a Collection of Youtube Videos
This curated collection of videos comes with Thoughts and Feelings Cards, which offer concrete and visual anchors for students to identify their own feelings.
Age Group: Elementary
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17. Develop Friendship Skills
This engaging list of social skills activities helps familiarize students with the qualities of a good friend, features a friend scavenger hunt for them to get to know their classmates, and challenges students to perform acts of kindness for others.
Age Group: Elementary
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18. Play an Emotions Board Game
What better way to learn about emotions than with a fun board game? This s'mores-themed game also promotes social development, listening skills, and a deeper discussion about emotional wellbeing.
Age Group: Elementary
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19. Read and Discuss The Color Monster
By associating colors with emotions, this internationally best-selling book helps students to identify them more easily. It's also an excellent way to develop active listening skills and features a whole host of extension activities for preschoolers.
Age Group: Preschool
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20. Develop Awareness of Feelings Through Observation
Kids can learn to interpret emotions by paying careful attention to the body language and gestures of the characters in this short animated film. Why not challenge them to see how many different feelings they can identify?
Age Group: Elementary
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21. Practice Social Skills with Task Cards
By teaching kids about anti-bullying, conflict resolution, and positive self-talk, this series of task cards encourage kids to be more mindful of their behavior at school and at home.
Age Group: Elementary
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22. Read and Discuss In My Heart: A Book of Feelings
This beautifully illustrated story is told through the whimsical eyes of a child and teaches kids how to verbalize their feelings by describing how they feel physically.
Age Group: Preschool, Elementary
Learn More: Amazon
23. Give Back With a Class Service Project
Why not encourage kids to become school leaders by guiding them to participate in one of these community service projects? Ranging from writing Thank You notes, and reading to seniors to packing lunches, there are a variety of excellent ideas for making empathy and service an engaging part of your classroom curriculum.
Age Group: Preschool, Elementary, Middle School, Highschool
Learn More: Sign-up Genius
24. SEL Journal Prompts
This collection of journal prompts features questions o to encourage students to express their feelings and ideas while building their self-confidence.
Age Group: Elementary, Middle School
Learn More: Journal Buddies
25. Encourage Positive Self-Talk
Positive self-talk is a critical skill for developing healthy self-esteem. This series of activities encourage students to have a deeper discussion about ways to be kinder to themselves.
Age Group: Elementary, Middle School
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