Counseling, Social Emotional Learning
Deep breathing is one of the best calming strategies you can teach your students. It’s effective and they always have it with them. While it is simple, students often need to be exposed to it many times and in many different ways. This calming strategy activity has students make their own breathing stick to help …
Counseling, Social Emotional Learning
As the year gets into it’s rhythm, we often lose the opportunities to check-in with students. I’m sure there have been times that you have wondered how your students are feeling or what they are thinking. Incorporating a daily student check-in activity or question is a great way to keep those connections open. Check-ins communicate that …
SEL Teaching Practices
Students transform when they understand who they are as learners and use that information to advocate for themselves. They become invested and in charge of their learning. Teachers get to be guides and supports, rather than tug boats dragging them along. How do we intentionally create a classroom community that fosters student self reflection? The Center …
Social Emotional Learning
ICYMI social emotional learning is now a controversial topic. Not sure there is a better example of our current politics than heated arguments about teaching kindness. Parents are being told to worry about their local schools – they are trying to instill values you don’t agree with and change your children. I think a couple of …
Social Emotional Learning
High stakes testing is anxiety provoking AND too much anxiety can decrease performance. Eeek! Leading up to testing season, you likely spend time getting students familiar with the test format. You practice useful tips for picking the best answer. Where do test anxiety strategies fit into your prep? Heading into the testing months, add in one …
Behavior
Behavior plans can fail miserably if we don’t have incentives that students care about. Despite that, we often stick a prize box in front of them and expect that to be motivating. When I stopped to talk to students about what they liked, I got good results. I’ve got even better results when I used …
Cognitive Behavioral Therapy
Without knowing you, I know that there are some worriers on your caseload. I’m sure that you are regularly looking for engaging activities for anxiety that will help your students. That’s probably how you wound up on this post. Well, dig in. This post has 6 key skills you want to cover in individual sessions …
Social Emotional Learning
Are you wanting to teach social emotional learning skills and are not quite sure where to start or where to fit it in your schedule? Start out adding in some simple routines that will help students practice social emotional skills throughout the day. Here are five SEL tools I think should be in every elementary …