Addressing CASEL 5 Core Competencies for Social-Emotional Learning
The Collaborative for Academic, Social, and Emotional Learning highlights five essential areas for academic and relationship success. They are self-awareness, self-management, social awareness, relationship skills, and responsible decision-making. There are easy ways to incorporate social-emotional activities both in class or at home. Most importantly, be present, and take time to share with your kids. Help them develop these necessary skills with CASEL competencies to set them up for success.
1. Self-Awareness
Self-awareness (understanding yourself) begins with recognizing and identifying emotions, needs, strengths, and limitations. For example, this involves managing anxiety, stress, and worry. Explore self-awareness by introducing emotional vocabulary. Teach kids how to model proper behavior. Mindfulness, as well as staying focused and on track, are also part of self-awareness. Having a growth mindset, along with the other factors, will result in self-confidence.
Self-management involves managing impulses, emotions, and stress. Discipline, motivation, resilience, and perseverance are also part of self-management. Help kids continue to build self-management skills at home with the following activities.
Social awareness is understanding others and their feelings and perspectives. It starts with acknowledging and appreciating that everyone is different. With this understanding, empathy and respect for others are essential steps in social awareness.
There is a continued need to build relationships at home. Communication, cooperation, and conflict resolution are essential to healthy relationships in and out of the home. Successful role play, working in groups, and parent interaction will help develop relationship skills. Try these activities during distance learning to encourage kids to connect with family members and peers online.
Responsible decision-making involves thinking through the parts of a problem and identifying various solutions and consequences. Discussing and predicting situations with teachers or parents can help kids learn to analyze, evaluate, and reflect on their own. Most important is knowing how to make good decisions to be your best self.
1. Self-Awareness
Self-awareness (understanding yourself) begins with recognizing and identifying emotions, needs, strengths, and limitations. For example, this involves managing anxiety, stress, and worry. Explore self-awareness by introducing emotional vocabulary. Teach kids how to model proper behavior. Mindfulness, as well as staying focused and on track, are also part of self-awareness. Having a growth mindset, along with the other factors, will result in self-confidence.
- Using Children’s Books – Find quality children’s literature to teach children emotional awareness. Then, use book activities to engage, have discussions, and further their ability to express their emotions.
- Scavenger hunt – Set up a scavenger hunt to work on attention, focus, and mindfulness. Focus on ways children can show responsibility at home.
- Journaling – Instruct students to keep a special journal to record challenges and emotions, events, and memories. Encourage them to try to think of one positive thing each day. This self-regulation and mindfulness activity can also include writing prompts. Try our Feelings Journal to get you started!
- Growth mindset – Use positive quotes about growth mindset to get kids ready to learn. These growth mindset posters can be colored and then hung around the house as reminders to persevere and not give up when things get hard.
- Managing emotions, anxiety, stress, worry – Check out this resource that helps parents teach their children to work on managing emotions at home. Use it to introduce and practice emotion vocabulary.
- Vision board – Have kids create a vision board of things they want to do in the future. You could suggest they think about tomorrow, next week, or over the summer, or even next school year! This activity is included in the free SEL activity pack for distance learning below!
- Self-affirmations cards – Spend some time creating self-affirmation cards at home and post them throughout the house as gentle reminders. Grab some for free below!
- “I Am” Mirror – Suggest that families find a small mirror and post the saying, “I Am” at the top. Add sticky notes with positive words, such as special, kind, and hardworking, around the mirror that they can recite.
Self-management involves managing impulses, emotions, and stress. Discipline, motivation, resilience, and perseverance are also part of self-management. Help kids continue to build self-management skills at home with the following activities.
- Help Others – Remind children that they can offer to do a favor or perform a chore for someone in their family. Make it a goal to work towards – once per week, or perhaps every day!
- Morning Meetings – Use Mind + Heart Morning Meeting slides to guide students in a virtual morning meeting to start your online class. This exercise will help them build self-management skills. Kids will enjoy connecting and sharing with their teacher and peers online.
- Be My Best Self Hat Craft – Learning from home can be hard and takes adjustment. Discuss how kids can be their best selves while learning at home. They can then color and create the “Be my best self” hat found in the distance learning activities pack (free below).
- Self-motivation, perseverance, and resilience – Work with the kids to learn that they can overcome challenges with persistence and hard work. Remind families to resist immediate assistance with rushing to help so their child can learn on their own. Ask them to use empowering language such as “you’re hanging in there, I’m proud of you,” and “You’ll get through this and be so happy with your progress.”
Social awareness is understanding others and their feelings and perspectives. It starts with acknowledging and appreciating that everyone is different. With this understanding, empathy and respect for others are essential steps in social awareness.
- Empathy with movies – With distance learning and extended time at home, videos will likely be popular. Have students pause to discuss feelings, emotions, consequences, and other valuable concepts. These books and videos that encourage empathy provide helpful examples!
- Random Acts of Kindness – Create a list of ways to be kind at home and then make a calendar of acts to complete in a month. Encourage students and their families to do them together.
- Donations – Encourage students to collect unused toys and books to donate when this is all over.
- Connect with Others – Be sure to address each child during your online chat by name. Encourage them to feel free to talk to you directly. For example, try to limit times when students must remain muted. Or, allow a few minutes at the beginning or end of your meeting with them to allow them to see and talk to each other. Share your email address and allow them to email you. Although it’s hard, attempt to respond to each one personally. End the email with warm comments to let them know they are special and loved.
- Wrinkled heart – Cut out a paper heart as in this meaningful activity and write on it – “Before you speak, think and be smart, it’s hard to fix a wrinkled heart.” Afterward, crumble up the heart and open it again. Discuss how you can’t remove the wrinkles just like you can’t take away those hurtful words.
There is a continued need to build relationships at home. Communication, cooperation, and conflict resolution are essential to healthy relationships in and out of the home. Successful role play, working in groups, and parent interaction will help develop relationship skills. Try these activities during distance learning to encourage kids to connect with family members and peers online.
- Paper Hearts – Instruct students to cut out paper hearts. Have them write personal messages of thanks, kindness, or appreciation for others. They can leave them on the windows or front door for service workers to see. Alternatively, they could post them in their house for family members to find.
- Virtual “Playdates” – Encourage families to connect their child online with a friend for a virtual chat on a platform, such as Zoom, Facebook Messenger Kids, or a Facetime call.
- Write & Send an Email – After a short lesson on how to write an email, have kids write one to their teacher, a friend in the class, or a family member. They will enjoy getting an email message in return! An adult can also write an email message from a child.
- Phone a Friend or Family Member – Encourage kids to connect with one friend or family member on the phone each week. This exercise is beneficial for everyone!
- Friendship Books & Videos – Remind kids how to be a good friend with the book and video examples in this post.
- Spend Quality Time Family – Kids are naturally spending extra time with family. Provide them with home connection ideas that build a strong family foundation. Suggest a family game night, eating meals together at the table, having daily check-in chats to talk about how things are going, and so on. These ideas and more are included in the home learning calendar below.
Responsible decision-making involves thinking through the parts of a problem and identifying various solutions and consequences. Discussing and predicting situations with teachers or parents can help kids learn to analyze, evaluate, and reflect on their own. Most important is knowing how to make good decisions to be your best self.
- Responsibility – Use this Responsibility unit to guide students in learning what responsibility means and how they can be responsible.
- Confidence – Build your kids’ confidence by having them practice making their own decisions. Encourage parents to refrain from running to the rescue every time there is a struggle. Remind them to focus on their strengths and nurture their unique skills and traits. Give them responsibility and set them up for success with achievable goals.
- New Accomplishments Jar – Every time the child accomplishes something new, have them write it down on a slip of paper and place in a special jar. After some time, encourage kids to share the entries to see the growth.
- Organization skills – Encourage families to establish routines and a dedicated place for learning in the home. Provide a schedule and ask families to post it visibly for kids. Teach kids how to organize the work they complete or take photos of their work for sharing virtually.
- Circle of control – Discuss situations that you can or cannot control. Create a poster with a circle on it. Inside the circle, draw and write things you CAN control. Outside the circle, draw and write situations that you CANNOT control. This will help calm children who experience anxiety during uncertain times.
- Goal-setting – Help kids set a home learning goal and discuss things they can do to work towards it. Create a plan! Use the template provided in the distance learning activities pack to learn how to establish goals.
- Caught Being Responsible – Encourage families to “catch” their kids when they are being responsible at home. Every time they are helpful with extra chores, remembering responsibilities, or working hard at their schoolwork, they can get a hole punch in a card (click here for this free incentive). Reward kids with a virtual high-five when they have all the spots punched out!
Social and Emotional Learning Activities in an Online Environment
Here are 5 simple social-emotional learning activities for online teaching that your students will love! In this overwhelming, uncertain time our students need social-emotional support more than ever. These ideas are low-prep for us as teachers but powerful activities for our kids.
1. Games for Social-Emotional Learning
In upper elementary, this isn’t as much of an intuitive response as it is in the younger grades….but it’s just as important! Games help with communication, patience, problem-solving, self-management, and build student relationships.
Here are some no-prep quick and easy games you can play via distance learning. They are great for morning meetings, warm-ups, or brain breaks.
Read alouds are a great way to teach social-emotional skills and bring normalcy to our students’ lives. Read alouds teach social-emotional skills by building empathy, providing discussions on perspective, problem-solving, and decision making. They also model and encourage appreciating diversity.
You can check out some of my favorite chapter book SEL read alouds here: https://shannonmareeteaching.com/read-alouds-for-the-social-emotional-learning-classroom/
and some great social-emotional picture book read alouds here: https://shannonmareeteaching.com/classroom-community-for-upper-elementary/
Social-emotional learning activities for online teaching can be quick, simple, and impactful.
3. Daily/Frequent Student Check-Ins
Our students, like the rest of us, are facing uncertain times. They are coping with major changes, potentially sick family members or friends, and the emotional rollercoaster and stress that come with a world crisis. Checking in our students can look a variety of ways. Check-ins are great for assessing the overall well-being of your students. Here are some of my favorites:
4. Mindful Breathing
Coping strategies, like mindful breathing, are a great way to support students. Students can use mindful breathing anywhere anytime. Social-emotional learning activities for online teaching like mindful breathing can be used by students outside of class or as a whole group to start a lesson, take a brain break, or end class.
5. Practice Gratitude
Focusing on the positive and showing gratitude has scientifically proven to improve physical and emotional health. Here are some quick gratitude prompts you can do with your students.
1. Games for Social-Emotional Learning
In upper elementary, this isn’t as much of an intuitive response as it is in the younger grades….but it’s just as important! Games help with communication, patience, problem-solving, self-management, and build student relationships.
Here are some no-prep quick and easy games you can play via distance learning. They are great for morning meetings, warm-ups, or brain breaks.
- Scavenger hunt: Have a shortlist of items for students to find around the house. Read items one at a time. The student who can return with the item the fastest wins that round. Ideas: something fuzzy or furry, something with a battery, 2 coins, sunglasses, a book, something you wear on your feet, something that’s square, two items that are opposite, etc.
- 4 Corners: Students raise hands to show they’re ready. The teacher selects a student to be “it.” That student closes their eyes and counts to 5. Students then hold up a number on their fingers (1-4). The student who is “it” picks a number 1-4, anyone holding up that number is out and puts their hand down.
- Charades/Pictionary: Random fun words or content/vocab based
- Guess Who (kids submit fun facts about themselves, then people guess who it is)
- Comedy Hour: Everyone who wants can bring a joke to share
- Quizzlet live or Kahoot: Academic or SEL basd options: here’s an example of an emotions Kahoot game you could play: https://create.kahoot.it/details/feelings-and-emotions-scenarios/1bfa1f37-ee62-492a-868f-e3c402bc7cab )
- Directed Drawings: There are tons of options here is one my students have enjoyed (I show them through share screen) then they hold up their finished drawings at the end. https://www.youtube.com/user/ArtforKidsHub
- Rock, Paper, Scissors Class Vs Teacher: Everyone plays, anyone who beats the teacher stays in for the round, anyone who the teacher beats puts their hands down, continue until there is a winner!
- Show and Tell: Let students know ahead of time and they can bring something to share with the class
- Student Teacher: Students take turns sharing a quick “how-to” with the class: how to make bubbles, make play-doh, an easy recipe, a paper airplane, etc.
- Invite a guest: Guest yoga instructor, magician, another teacher they may have had in the past or an admin to do the read-aloud
- Use emojis in the chat to guess a vocabulary word, book/movie title, character, phrase or saying, etc. Or pose a situation and ask students to share how they’d feel or respond in that situation by using emojis.
Read alouds are a great way to teach social-emotional skills and bring normalcy to our students’ lives. Read alouds teach social-emotional skills by building empathy, providing discussions on perspective, problem-solving, and decision making. They also model and encourage appreciating diversity.
You can check out some of my favorite chapter book SEL read alouds here: https://shannonmareeteaching.com/read-alouds-for-the-social-emotional-learning-classroom/
and some great social-emotional picture book read alouds here: https://shannonmareeteaching.com/classroom-community-for-upper-elementary/
Social-emotional learning activities for online teaching can be quick, simple, and impactful.
3. Daily/Frequent Student Check-Ins
Our students, like the rest of us, are facing uncertain times. They are coping with major changes, potentially sick family members or friends, and the emotional rollercoaster and stress that come with a world crisis. Checking in our students can look a variety of ways. Check-ins are great for assessing the overall well-being of your students. Here are some of my favorites:
- Non-verbal: Students can show you with an action how they’re feeling, you can also offer numbers (1-5 assigning each a different meaning) and ask students to show you with their hands
- Ask students to describe if they were the weather, what they’d be today
- Google Forms: Always available for students to use, quick and easy, students don’t need an account, information is neatly organized for the teacher
- Ask students to drop an emoji in the comments that represents how they’re feeling
- Color check-in: Assign different meanings to different colors and have students hold up something that color
4. Mindful Breathing
Coping strategies, like mindful breathing, are a great way to support students. Students can use mindful breathing anywhere anytime. Social-emotional learning activities for online teaching like mindful breathing can be used by students outside of class or as a whole group to start a lesson, take a brain break, or end class.
- Belly Breathing: Focus on holding your chest still while making your stomach rise and fall for 3 minutes. Lay on your back and put your hands on your stomach. Feel your stomach lift and lower while taking deep breaths.
- Deep Square Breathing: Start by drawing one side of the square and breathe in for 4 seconds. Draw the second line of the square and hold your breath for 4 seconds. As you draw the third line breathe out for 4 seconds. Complete the square by drawing the fourth line and holding your breath for 4 seconds. Repeat as many times as you want.
- Bubble Breathing: Take a deep breath in. Exhale slowly trying to blow the biggest bubble you can without exhaling too quickly and popping it.
- Shoulder Roll Breathing: Slowly begin to lift and roll your shoulders backward. As you roll them breathe in and out. When you’re ready, switch directions of the shoulder roll. Continue to breathe in through your nose and out through your mouth slowly.
Hand Tracing Breathing: Students put one hand out in front of themselves and use a finger on the other hand to trace. As they trace up the finger they take a deep breath in through their nose, and as they trace down the finger they slowly let the air out of their mouth.
5. Practice Gratitude
Focusing on the positive and showing gratitude has scientifically proven to improve physical and emotional health. Here are some quick gratitude prompts you can do with your students.
- What are 3 things you’re thankful for today?
- What are 5 positive things about yourself?
- Who are 3 people you’re thankful for today?
- Who are 3 people you can reach out to with encouragement or a message of gratitude today?
- What’s a place that your grateful for?
- What’s something you’re grateful to have today that you didn’t have a few years ago?
- What artist, musician, author, performer, or athlete are you grateful for?
- What book are you grateful for?
- What’s something outside that brings you joy?