A little time goes a long way to make social-emotional learning strategies stick!
Students benefit when they learn to manage their emotions, set and achieve goals, feel and show empathy for others, and create strong relationships.
As adults, we use these skills daily, so it makes sense to give students a chance to test their social-emotional strategies during the school day. And best of all, it’s often more manageable than it seems to incorporate a few social-emotional learning opportunities into a traditional lesson. Best of all, students walk away with more than just a good grade but tips they can use for life.
National SEL Week — March 6-10
The Collaborative for Academic, Social, and Emotional Learning (CASEL) offers comprehensive educational resources and research to support students, teachers, and parents.
CASEL recommends three daily practices that help support students in their SEL growth. The signature practices are very straightforward and include the following:
Welcome Inclusion Activity – Builds community to tackle the word ahead. Examples include whole group meetings, morning circles, and peer-to-peer work.
Engaging Strategies – Offering interactive and reflective moments. Examples include partner discussions, private think time, or brain breaks.
Optimistic Closure – Highlights a sense of accomplishment and supports forward thinking. Examples include a one-minute accolade or a shared takeaway.
Test out these social and emotional learning tips in recognition of National SEL Week from March 6-10, 2023. The week will culminate with SEL Day on Friday, March 10, to showcase these tools’ powerful impact in uplifting hearts and connecting minds — the theme for this year’s week of activities.
Doodling Activities to Support SEL
It’s easy to see how working in 3D could be leveraged to support CASEL’s three daily practices in unique and creative ways. For example, a class could work together on a large 3D printing project as a welcome activity, or students could create individual items to share with a larger group in a morning circle activity. Doodling also provides a fun outlet for students to enjoy while using interactive and reflective moments or even acting as a brain break. Lastly, it’s fantastic to wrap up a lesson, like the ones featured below, with a key takeaway or accomplishment.
This week, explore the following lessons and recognize the value of social and emotional learning!
Grade K-2: Stone Soup
Stone Soup is a classic children’s story in which a hungry stranger convinces people in a small village to contribute food to make a meal everyone enjoys and serves a moral regarding the value of sharing.
The class will hear the original tale and learn about the value of working together. Then, students will be able to create their own doodled stones using the chosen nouns. Working with a partner, they will create four different story stones. Finally, students will use their story stones as writing prompts, incorporating them into a simple story with a beginning, middle, and end.
Grade 3-5: Puppets and Props Story Retelling
In small groups, students will enact a scene from a book with the class. But, with a unique twist, they will create and use doodled finger puppets to share their story with the class. Retelling a story is a fantastic way to build language, speaking, and listening skills. Plus, working together and having an opportunity to design with a 3D pen offers a creative outlet that students will enjoy. The final puppet shows will reflect an understanding of story structure, sequence, and reading comprehension.
Grade 6-8: 3Doodler Stop Motion
Stop-motion animation is a fantastic way to teach students about story structure, think creatively, and work together on communication and teamwork skills. Students will work in pairs or small groups to identify fictional themes in this activity. Next, they will choose a scene representing the theme and doodle their characters and props in 3D. Once ready, they will enact the scene and create a stop-motion animation. The experience will help students build confidence and share their ideas as they work with their peers.
