Have you ever found yourself wondering how to cultivate a nurturing and harmonious classroom environment, one where every child feels empowered and understood? Today, I’m going to share nine transformative social and emotional learning strategies that can drive epic student growth and create a thriving learning community.
What Social-Emotional Learning Is
Social and emotional learning strategies integrate emotional intelligence with interpersonal skills. As we teach social-emotional skills students develop:
- Self-awareness
- Self-management
- Social awareness
- Relationship skills
- Responsible decision making
Where I live and work, in BC Canada, we identify these as the Core Competencies, and we are expected to incorporate social and emotional learning strategies into every class somehow.
Why are social and emotional learning strategies important? In addition to the support they offer to academic success, these skills are important because they are the 60 year lessons that we are teaching. If we teach them well we gift our students skills that will carry them through the next 60 years.
And with social and emotional learning strategies those skills will improve those years. 😊
Why is Social and Emotional Learning Important?
Research consistently shows that students who have access to SEL instruction:
- Have improved behaviour
- Achieve higher academic performance
- Demonstrate better attitude
The Collaborative for Academic, Social, and Emotional Learning (CASEL) completed a meta-analysis showing that students who got instruction with social and emotional learning strategies showed an 11-percentile point gain in academic achievement compared to students who did not.
For these reasons I have made social and emotional learning strategies one of my 5 pillars of classroom management.
Social and emotional learning strategies are where it is at! 😉
Social and Emotional Learning Strategies Examples
Well, I promised 9 social and emotional learning strategies, and I have included a few activities, most of them with links, to get you started. Or at least to give you a picture of how each strategy would look in a classroom.
1. Self-Awareness Exercises:
Emotion Chart Creation: In groups or individually have students create charts with different facial expressions and discuss what each expression might mean.
Personal Strengths Wall: This would make a great art or writing project. Or maybe integrate the two subject areas. Students draw or write about their strengths and display them on a classroom wall.
Feelings Journal: Have students start each day or one day a week with a journal where they reflect on how they feel and why.
2. Mindfulness Practises:
Guided Breathing Sessions: Lead students in simple breathing exercises. Focus on guiding them to breathe in and out slowly.
Mindful Listening: Have students focus on listening carefully and play various sounds from nature. Maybe offer them a choice of doodling images of what they hear or listening with their heads on their desks to help them to listen better.
Body Scan Relaxation: Guide students through a body scan meditation. Help students to notice different parts of their bodies and release tension (Rhyming body scan option).
3. Empathy Building Activities:
Role-Playing Scenarios: Set up simple role-playing activities where students can act out different emotions or situations.
Kindness Tree: Create a tree on the wall where students can add leaves that describe acts of kindness they have observed.
Story Sharing: Have students share stories about times they helped someone or were helped by someone.
4. Collaborative Projects:
Buddy Reading: Pair students to read stories to each other. Encourage them to help each other with difficult words. In my class the students read with random partners, not same reading level partners. With monitoring this is a great opportunity to practice patience, humility, kindness, etc.
Group Art Projects: Assign small groups to create a mural or piece of art that tells a story. In my class we did simple projects in which each student just decorated a single tree. I didn’t tell them the purpose of the tree, and the next day when they came in they saw the mural. I discussed the power of teamwork with them. For the forest mural every piece of the mural was cut to scale, painted by small groups and then assembled. Students then coloured animals for the forest (the animals weren’t so much to scale 😏).
Class Garden: Work together to plant and maintain a small classroom garden, assigning different tasks to each group.
Conflict Resolution Training:
Peace Table: Set up a small table where students can go to resolve disagreements with guidance.
Feelings Circle: Gather in a circle to discuss misunderstandings or conflicts, allowing each student a turn to speak.
Solution Wheel: Create a wheel of solutions that students can spin when they need ideas for resolving conflicts.
Emotional Regulation Strategies:
Calm Down Kits: Provide kits with items like stress balls, coloring pages, or puzzles for students to use when feeling overwhelmed.
Emotion Thermometer: Use a wall chart to help students identify the intensity of their emotions and appropriate calming strategies.
Yoga Sessions: Lead simple yoga sessions to help students manage stress and find balance.
Relationship Skills Workshops:
Compliment Circle: Students sit in a circle and take turns giving each other compliments, fostering a positive classroom community.
Friendship Pledge: Develop a classroom contract on how to treat one another and revisit it regularly.
Partner Games: Have students engage in games that require cooperation and trust, such as a trust fall with spotters. See an example of a partner game from my store bby clicking onto the icon below.
Growth Mindset Encouragement:
Goal Setting: Have students set personal, academic goals and discuss ways to achieve them.
Growth Mindset Mantra: Teach students simple mantras that reinforce the concept that they can improve through practice. Mine was a simple set of 4 letter-size posters up on my wall. I would refer to these if we were tacklingtacking something tough, and we would say them out loud together.
Mistake of the Day: Normalize mistakes by discussing one mistake each day and what was learned from it. I used to stop every time I made a mistake, and laugh about it.
Expressive Arts Integration:
Emotion Drawing: Ask students to draw how they are feeling using colors and shapes.
Music Emotion Exploration: Play different types of music and ask students to express what it makes them feel through dance or drawing.
Puppet Shows: Have students create and perform short puppet shows that express different emotions or social situations.
Social and Emotional Learning Strategies for Parents
I know that as teachers we would love to see our students learn more about these skills at home. The truth is that many parents don’t have these skills themselves, let along the knowledge to teach them.
However, parents and caregivers to play an important role in reinforcing these social and emotional learning strategies at home.
I typically sent home a weekly email covering various highlights of everything from what we were learning about to upcoming special events. A weekly email is a great place to share social and emotional learning strategies that you worked on with your students. If it is possible to share a template as well, do that.
Encourage families to incorporate activities that focus on emotional recognition and empathy, such as family journaling or storytelling.
Why are Social and Emotional Learning Strategies Important?
Social and emotional learning strategies help teachers and parents change and improve students’ emotional intelligence and interpersonal skills. When we do this we prepare students for academic success and for a fulfilling life. So, the next time you enter your classroom, remember the impact social and emotional learning strategies can have – for today, tomorrow, 60 years hence and even changing future generations.
