A Growing List of Important Social-Emotional Learning Lessons

A Growing List of Important Social-Emotional Learning Lessons

What is ‘SEL Lessons’

You’ve heard it before… “Make sure you are implementing social-emotional learning into your classroom…” “Have morning meeting every day…” 

But let’s be real: many teachers haven’t actually been trained on what culturally relevant social-emotional learning looks like in the classroom. And on top of that, there are a MILLION other things you have to get done every day. 

I know. It’s a lot. Where do you even start?

Here is a list of SEL topics to help get you started. (Over the course of the school year, I am going to write and link blog posts about all of these topics, and more, to make sure you have a whole bunch of resources and ideas ready to go, so be sure to check back.)

SEL Lessons Elementary

Self-Awareness

  • Expanding emotional vocabulary (happy = joyful, pleased, content, calm, excited)
  • What do I like?
  • What is my learning style?
  • What causes me stress?

Social Awareness

  • Empathy for others
  • Recognizing differences and similarities
  • Social justice & current events
  • Social cues (tone, body language, facial expressions)
  • Social responsibility (what are needs that our school and community has? how can we be part of creating positive change?)

Self-Management

  • Goal setting (what is a goal, how to write a goal, SMART goals)
  • Regulating emotions (breathing, walking away, getting a drink of water, cool down corner, etc.)
  • Ethics
  • Integrity and honesty

Responsible Decision-Making

  • Bystander versus upstander
  • Evaluate fairness
  • Evaluate how our own actions impact others
  • How does media influence our behavior and decisions
  • Practice decision-making in several situations

Relationship Skills

  • Giving and receiving compliments
  • Reflective listening
  • Good sportsmanship
  • Attentive listening (and how that can look different for different people)
  • Positive and negative relationships
  • Helthy friendships
  • Helathy dating relationships
  • Setting boundaries with friends, family, school, and work
  • Conflict resolution
  • Problem solving

Here are some free cool down corner anchor charts to go along with your SEL lessons!