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Daily check ins for students in my opinion work for any grade level! Specifically for kids in the 5th grade , a daily check would happen first thing in the morning and allow for any of the previous day's issues to be brought to light, or even allow for a clear reset for the day if a student had an off day, the day before.

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This type of interaction among students facilitates their abilities to build their relationship skills and enhance their social awareness. One way partnerships can become a part of your class is by using a method called Clock Partners. This method allows for students to share their points of view with multiple people and since it is timed it allows for each student to have equal time to express their opinions and feelings, with out being interrupted.

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Collaboration. Conversation. Presentation.

Incorporating these essential elements of the Common Core is a breeze if you follow these two simple steps.

1) Stop thinking of these as standards that should be addressed independently.
2) Start thinking of these as tools that students must utilize to achieve mastery in the content areas.

During each lesson and learning activity in the classroom, we should provide tools for students to collaborate productively, have meaningful two-way conversations (two-way being the key word), and present their thinking in a way that is clear and powerful.

One of the best ways to begin building these skills is to incorporate partner talk in each and every learning activity. Often times, teachers' default partnering strategy is to have students talk to the person sitting closest to them. This may be quick and easy but it also limits students' learning horizons as they are hearing from the same person every time they share. It is especially detrimental to students who are stuck in one-way conversations with an introvert or a space cadet.

Instead, we must expose students to a variety of voices and perspectives around the classroom during idea shares. The Clock Partner Pair Share Management Tool will help you spruce up your current pair share system with one that is engaging for students and easy for you.

Implementation Tips

Take a solid chunk of time (I usually spend about 30 minutes) setting up the clocks with your students.

First, distribute one clock to each student.

Discuss the importance of the Clock Partner Promise as you see fit and have students write their name on the top line.

Then, have the students fill each of their time slots with the names of 12 different classmates. This is the part that takes a bit of time at first but is well worth it in the future. I typically reserve the first three slots for strategically assigned partnerships as follows:

12:00 - Strategically Assigned Writing Partner
1:00 - Strategically Assigned Reading Partner
2:00 - Strategically Assigned Math Partner

When it comes to the rest of the clock, we have a little more fun. I have the students find partners who have the same hair color, the same teacher from last year, someone they don't usually spend time with at recess, someone who has the same favorite color as them, etc.

Once all the slots are filled, we tuck our clocks in our desk in a place where they are easily accessible.

Anytime I want my students to share ideas or work on an activity with a partner, I simply say, "Meet with your ___o'clock partner". Students are able to quickly refer to their clock and meet with a variety of partners without any additional coordination on my part. About half way through the year, I give them a fresh clock and we find new partners to reignite the excitement and variety.

If you give Clock Partners a try or have another fun method for boosting collaboration in your classroom, share below.

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Collaborate With Clock Partners - Classroom Management Freebie

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Incorporate partner talk and pari shares in each and every learning activity with the Clock Partners classroom management tool.

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Not only should they work with partners but working in teams/groups also does wonders for their social emotional learning. In these groups assigning each student in the group a job makes them responsible for a portion of the work and makes them understand that they have a place in any setting, and that their role in the group and in life is essential.

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From online teaching resources to in-room consultations, the Center for Teaching and Learning supports instructors by helping them take their teaching to the next level.

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This one for me is very important. Nurturing the growth mindset by introducing new phrases can help students see and believe in their own abilities to learn more and not stay in a defeated mindset when they make mistakes!

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This year, help students learn the importance of growth mindset and taking risks by establishing your expectations for how students talk about themselves and their work.

Our classroom poster shares 8 positive phrases students can use to foster their resilience and overcome failure. Hang a large copy on your classroom wall, or give students their own smaller versions to paste in their journals or planners.

Growth Mindset Poster

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Classroom Poster: 8 Phrases That Nurture Growth Mindset

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This year, help students learn the importance of growth mindset and taking risks by establishing your expectations for how students talk about themselves and their work. Our classroom poster shares 8 positive phrases students can use to foster their resilience and overcome failure.

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Creating a small space in your classroom where students are allowed to retreat in the case they become aggravated or upset, can teach students how to remove themselves from a situation in an effort to take time to think about how they are feeling a will reduce the chances of their emotions manifesting themselves in undesired behaviors.

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Using play can facilitate emotional expression in children. An example of a game that could be played is a problem solving board game. This game would be a board game that has social problems on the game pieces and depending on where they land, the student would be respond to a "situation card" and share how they would deal with that social problem.

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Games can be the perfect tool to introduce and teach social emotional learning skills to kids and young adults. These are the skills that help kids become more self-aware, develop positive relationships, show empathy towards others, manage emotions, use self-control, resolve conflicts, and make positive decisions. If you need more background on SEL, make sure you read up on the basics of social emotional learning.

So often, educators are so busy teaching our curriculum and content that we sometimes leave these skills behind. It's so important to make real time for them and incorporate them into many of the activities you already do! For kids who struggle with some of these skills, learning them can be real work. With that said, it's important to make learning these skills meaningful, interactive, hands-on, and fun. That's why teaching social emotional skills in the form of a game just makes so much sense!

Here are several games (some I've purchase and some I've developed myself) that target these critical social emotional learning skills:
1. Social Problem Solving Board Game
Why It's Important: Social problem-solving is our ability to understand a social situation and use reasoning to deal with it in the most socially appropriate way. We really use these skills every single day. At school, kids might have to problem-solve what to do when someone isn't nice to them or when they see someone else breaking a rule and aren't sure what to do. At home, they might use them when an adult tells them to clean their room but they don't feel like it at the moment.

How It Works: This game focuses on considering a social problem, thinking about what it matters, considering choices and consequences, and ultimately making a decision that is best in the moment. Kids will roll a dice and work through a game board, picking up a situation card for each spot they land on. My favorite part is that kids will also act out scenarios which can help them to generalize the social skills over time.
2. Team Pictionary
Why It's Important: Teamwork is a critical skill for all ages. This is a skill kids and young adults use throughout the school day, but also outside of school, whether it is during a sports game or playing a game with friends at home. While learning to work together as a team, kids also learn other valuable skills including assertive communication, how to listen, turn-taking, doing a fair share of the work, and how to respectfully disagree with each other. These are not only school skills, but life skills.

How It Works: Split up into two teams. Let each team pick an artist who will draw for their team. Let the artists pick a card with a phrase they will have to illustrate on paper or on the board. Let both artists draw at the same time, while their team tries to guess the correct phrase they are drawing. The catch is that the artist can only draw images and not words, so team members must work together to come up with what the artist is drawing. The team that guesses the phrase first wins! The game can continue again and again, as different artists from the group should be chosen.
3. Social Communication Board Game
Why It's Important: Simply put, kids need to be able to communicate well with others. That includes having small talk with a classmate in the hallway, understanding nonverbal cues, holding a full conversation with peers at lunch, and using our social filter before we speak. Our communication skills have a huge impact on how we get along with others and develop relationships over time.

How It Works: This game is ideal for all kids, but especially those with social language challenges. Depending on which space kids fall on, they will have to decipher social cues from a real life photo, discuss what they would do or say in a situation, identify how they should think before they speak, or say a specific phrase in a variety of different tones. Since there are over 150 unique cards, kids can just play again and again while practicing these skills.
4. Empathy Board Game
Why It's Important: Considering and understanding the feelings of others is a foundational skill that supports social success. In order to know the "right" or socially appropriate response to situations, we must first really understand how others feel. Developing empathy isn't easy for all kids, especially those with social challenges and autism. It's important to highlight situations by stopping to think how someone else might feel or think. While thinking about how you might feel in a situation is a good start, t's critical to target how someone else might feel. That's because true empathy is really about understanding someone else's thoughts and feelings, which can often be different from our own.

How It Works: Students will work in partners and small groups to get through an empathy game board. For a person's turn, they will roll the dice and spin the spinner. Their spot on the game board and the spinner will tell them how to answer each card. For example, they might have to answer: Why does it matter? How might they feel? What might they be thinking? What might you do? Students might also have to act out what they would do in that situation. There are over 150 unique situations that help kids discuss and build empathy over real-life scenarios.
5. Social Charades
Why It's Important: A huge component to social awareness is learning to identify and understand the social cues of others. These social cues, including our body language and facial expressions, often inform others how we're feeling, what we're thinking, and what our intentions are.

How It Works: Create a list of different actions or have the kids come up with them themselves. Any action will do! Some examples might be waiting at the bus stop, sharpening your pencil, listening to music, running in a race, taking notes in class, and so on. The idea is that kids will randomly choose one action and act it out for the others to guess. By acting out these scenarios, students will need to consider what social cues would be aligned with that activity. Best of all, this is a quick activity you can do with just a few minutes of class time left that kids will love.
6. Roll & Spin a Coping Strategy
Why It's Important: Being able to manage our emotions is a critical skill. We all experience tough emotions, setbacks, or challenges along the way. It's just a natural part of life. How we handle those difficulties can make a big impact on our success. That's why it's so important to explicitly teach coping strategies and skills to manage our feelings on the spot. Sometimes, kids cannot self-soothe without being explicitly taught these strategies. Kids and young adults need to learn they can take a quick walk, write in a journal, take deep breaths, and use positive self-talk to calm themselves and feel better in moments of difficulty. Additionally, it's important that kids practice these strategies when they are already calm so that they can really use them when they are emotionally overwhelmed.

How It Works: Using a one-page board, students will take turns rolling and spinning. Depending on what they roll and spin, they will fall on a space with a coping strategy that they will have to practice. Once they practice that strategy, they can cover up the spot with a chip. Note that students can have their own boards or share if you have different colored chips. The first person to get one whole row across wins! Ultimately, the idea is that kids are practicing a wide variety of coping strategies, giving them access to more skills when they truly need them.
7. Feelings Uno
Why It's Important: Self-awareness is a critical skill that helps individuals understand their own emotions. In this activity, students can improve their emotional vocabularies by discussing a variety of different feeling words and what they mean. It also helps to normalize talking about different emotions and being comfortable sharing how we are feeling in the moment. Getting kids talking about emotions is key.

How It Works: This game just adds a simple twist to your normal Uno game, which all kids absolutely LOVE! Using the Uno colors, discuss what each of the colors might mean. Blue can stand for feeling sad, tired, bored, or sick. Green stands for feeling happy, calm, focused, and in control. Yellow means feelings frustrated, worried, or nervous. Finally, red should stand for angry. Every time a student plays a color of a card, teach them to use an emotion word that matches the color, share a time they felt that way, or discuss when someone might feel that way.
8. Executive Functioning Challenge
Why It's Important: Executive functioning skills are the processes in our brain that help us accomplish tasks. Sometimes we might think of these skills as only related to academics, but that's actually not true. Our executive functioning skills help us use our self-control to stop and think before saying something inappropriate, our flexibility to consider different solutions for social problems, and our time management to make sure we meet a friend on time. When executive functioning skills are stronger, kids and young adults have greater chance for success in school and beyond.

How It Works: This game can actually be played two different ways: partners and small groups, or as a full class. The idea is that students work through a game board, answering a variety of executive functioning questions as they head towards the finish line. The game cards have students completing executive functioning challenges, acting out situations, naming executive functioning skills used in a situation, and proving their knowledge about the skills themselves. For the full class version, kids can work in teams, collaborating on the answers and getting "points" to win the challenge.
9. Guess Who?
Why It's Important: This game builds on many different social skills. As kids find out more clues about the mystery person, they are learning skills for conversations, turn-taking, and problem-solving.

How It Works: Kids and teens can play the game just as it is intended. Each partner will have a mystery character. The idea is that the other partner will ask multiple questions in an effort to try and discover the character. For example, they might ask, "Does your person wear a hat?" and "Does your person have blue eyes?". Students will take turns until one player is able to identify the correct mystery person.
10. Self-Control Speedway
Why It's Important: Self-control is the skill that helps us stop, think, and make positive choices. Kids and teens need lots of practice with self-control in low-stress moments (like games and casual discussions) so that they can effectively use the skills when they need them the most.

How It Works: Students will play the game by taking turn rolling the dice and moving forward on the game board. When they land on a spot, they will use the picture to tell them which card to pick up and read. Students will read the card to discuss the question or act out the scenario. Practice involves reading through real-life scenarios, practicing calm-down strategies, and more.
11. Partner Scrabble
Why It's Important: Learning to work with others is a critical skill. In this game, students will learn to work together in a collaborative way to build words for the game board.

How It Works: Have students get with a partner or small team to play Scrabble. Each team will start with 7 letters, working to build the highest-earning words on the board. This game also builds on turn-taking and cognitive flexibility.

If you love the games I've put together, you can save by getting them as a whole set! This Social Emotional Learning Games Bundle gives practice with empathy, perspective-taking, executive functioning skills, communication, and more.

Use these games during break times, small groups, as an end of the week reward, or just a fun brain break. Kids will have fun but you'll know you're working on serious SEL skills that make a difference!

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Using Games to Teach Social Emotional Skills

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Games can be the perfect tool to introduce and teach social emotional learning skills to kids and young adults. These are the skills that help kids become more self-aware, develop positive relationships, show empathy towards others, manage emotions, use self-control, resolve conflicts, and make posi

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Goal setting is a wonderful way students get to monitor how they are doing and allows them to self monitor their progress and to see how their efforts are helping them improve.

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This post is a part of the Thriving Learner Series from AffectiveLiving, aimed at helping students find purpose and happiness. File this one under Accomplishment Strategies.
Imagine hundreds of jigsaw puzzle pieces strewn across a table, waiting to be put together by a student. There are numerous shapes, sizes, and colors. Some puzzle pieces are flipped upside down. The student searches for the box that shows what the completed puzzle should look like. But that box has gone missing. The student has no guiding image, no structure, no model to guide his work.

On top of that, the teacher makes this startling announcement:
"If you do really well on this state-mandated puzzle, our school can be ranked higher on a list that doesn't matter to you! If you do well, you'll go on to college where you can spend four more years solving even more of these puzzles, which will only put you in debt for a few thousand dollars. You'll also help us keep our jobs. (You want us to keep our jobs, don't you?) So, kids, you better work real hard on that puzzle-real hard. Be gritty because if you work harder you'll solve it better."
This is what school is like for students who don't have goals. School is hundreds of inconsequential moments thrown together without any particular purpose or relevance-puzzle pieces strewn across the table, or the assignment to keep at it, even without a picture of what "it" is.

The obstacle I've seen with the Grit Movement is that teachers focus too much on the "perseverance" part, talking ad nauseum about trying harder and not giving up. We often forget that a major component of grit is passion for "long-term goals."

To talk about perseverance and passion without helping students see the bigger picture-the end goal of this puzzle-solving process -is not going to help them solve the puzzle any faster. Students need goals, large and small, easy and hard. They need to see how the little pieces fit within the larger puzzle. And, most of all, they need to find purpose in putting together the puzzle in the first place.

Our job is to help them see the bigger picture. Our job is to help them find the puzzles they want to solve, and then show how our content can help them solve their own puzzles.

Whether you teach high schoolers or pre-kindergartners, it is never too soon (or too late) to help students develop their passions, set and adjust goals, and increase their self-efficacy.

Here are five quick, easy strategies for making passion and goal-setting a part of your students' puzzle-solving world.

1. Bucket Lists

Students go through the process of creating "bucket lists" of things they want to accomplish before they die. These lists are then shared, revisited, and posted to keep long-term, passionate goal-setting a present part of the classroom.

Why: One major obstacle to helping students develop grit is that they're not spending enough time thinking about what they want to accomplish (i.e. forming goals). We can do better in helping students develop a vision-as well as help support them in taking the all-important first steps toward making a vision a reality.

2. Vision Boards

Similar to Bucket Lists, students develop visual images of what they want to accomplish in life.

Why: Many students have a narrow view of what success could look like because their vision is based only on what they see around them. Vision Boards can help students develop goals both more ambitious and more specific.

3. Meaning Missions

Students are given random, personalized missions that support their passions and/or "grand goals." These missions are ungraded ways to help students take active steps in developing confidence and competence with their goals.

For example:

Art - "Your mission is to create a logo/design for our [name of club/organization] to be used on this year's t-shirts. Make sure you logo includes their symbols (a micro- scope and a star)."

Fishing - "Your mission is to create a youtube video on how to bait a hook and clean a fish for beginners (particularly young children)."

Music - "Your mission is to create background music for our school's announcements. Feel free to make it upbeat and use instrumentation that your peers would like."

Helping others - "Your mission is to take the contents contained in this envelope [$5] and make the biggest, most positive impact possible on someone in our school."

Video Games - "Your mission is to create a new video game concept for teenagers aged 14-18. Once completed, I'll help you pitch your concept to the owners of S2 Games."

Why: Students have a variety of passions and grand goals that may not fit within standardized curricula or graduation requirements. These passions, however, should still be acknowledged, cultivated, and supported no matter what class we teach. And students should take active, physical steps toward achieving those goals right away. Meaning Missions allow us to fuel students' passions and goals by getting them to take the first steps now.

4. Transcendent Mission Statements

Students identify benefits and purpose beyond their immediate goals (to pass a test, for instance), such as improving geometry knowledge to improve problem solving skills.

Why: Since learning takes work and cognitive struggle, students need a larger purpose for investing their energy. Unfortunately, students (and teachers) often only focus on the immediate benefits like test scores and passing classes. Coaching students to find a more transcendent benefit can help them persevere and develop intrinsic reasons to progress on their academic goals.An interesting study led by David Yeager and Marlone Henderson of the University of Texas at Austin found that even brief, one-time interventions-teachers asking students to find transcendent purposes for learning-helped students become more engaged in their learning. The interventions also improved math and science grade-point averages over several months.

5. Future-Focus Friday

On a selected day of the week, set aside brief time to allow students to reflect upon their past goals, re-work existing goals, or set new ones.

Why: Gritty goals take continual work and effort in order to accomplish. And, often our first (or fortieth) attempt at accomplishing a goal doesn't work. So, the more we allow space for students to assess their progress, tweak their goals, and get feedback and coaching, the more we help students develop motivation and self-efficacy.

If you want more ideas - and lesson plans - for using these and other accomplishment strategies, click on the link for the free ebook G-Words: 20 Strategies for Fostering Grit and Growth Mindset.

We can do better than just talk about what grit is. We can help students cultivate grit by making their goals a priority.

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My Problem With the Grit Movement and How I Think We Can Solve It

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This post is a part of the Thriving Learner Series from AffectiveLiving, aimed at helping students find purpose and happiness. File this one under Accomplishment Strategies. Imagine hundreds of jigsaw puzzle pieces strewn across a table, waiting to be put together by a student. There are numerous shapes, sizes, and colors.

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Partnering with students in different grades will help student learn empathy and compassion. Having students interact with kids who are younger than them will teach them patients and give them the ability to communicate with people who require more attention.

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Jon Konen
School Principal

Back to the main Bully Prevention Guide.

PU#113 - Use Buddy Classes

Read to me, draw with me...let's create something together!

Creating a community of learners in a school can be done in many ways by students and staff. One way to quickly build relationships between students and staff is to create Buddy Classrooms. These are classrooms from different grade levels that meet routinely. The goal of the Buddy Classrooms is to create bonds between older students and younger students. The older students become role models for these younger students.

There are many powerful ways these classroom connections can become even more powerful for your school. Here is a list of 19 ideas for use of buddy classrooms:

1) Reading Buddies -- younger students can read to older students and vice versa, create book commercials together, book chats, and more.

2) Art Projects -- create art projects together; if there are more intricate processes to the art project, save them for the older buddy partner.

3) Science Experiment Teammates -- create a science experiment that buddies can do by collecting data, building, and then experimenting; share out the findings together.

4) Discipline Buddies -- when a student owes time or is not ready to participate, they can do a time out in other buddy classroom; sending a note can help the receiving teacher know how they can support the student.

5) Sharing Good News -- When a student does something to celebrate, they go to their buddy room and receive praise, a cheer, or even earn time with the buddy classroom.

6) Field Day -- At the end or start of the year, older students could set up track and field events; or an obstacle course for the younger students, then support the younger students as they participate, or they can participate with them.

7) Technology Projects -- Introducing younger students to technology can be made easier with older buddy class partners; students can complete a project together while learning new software or hardware; teams can then share out their project.

8) Writing Stories -- Students can write a story together; then share out together; older students could type while younger students can help develop the story.

9) Modeling School Procedures -- Older students can support younger students by modeling what it looks like and sounds like to walk down hallways, exit or enter school, ask for help, etc...

10) Assembly Partners -- During assemblies older students can sit with their younger buddy partners; modeling is key here.

11) Creating Buddy Class Logo, Team Name, and Saying -- Creating a team atmosphere by each buddy classroom team creating a logo and having an inspirational saying associated with the team.

12) Playground Assistants -- Older students are placed with younger students to teach them how to use the playground equipment; older students can help run games and activities outside; if your school has the Peaceful Playground games, older students can model and teach the younger students.

13) Cleaning Crew -- Buddy partners clean up around the school together; make it into a contest by weighing each team's bag of garbage.

14) Partner Walking -- When a student needs a break from the classroom or other activity, a buddy partner can walk with them in a designated area; this can be used in a Behavior Intervention Plan with supervision.

15) Fundraising Teams -- Buddy classrooms can raise money for a cause; classrooms can compete against each other throughout the school; buddy classrooms can set up and organize a team or even a school-wide fund raiser.

16) Breakfast Buddies/Lunch Buddies -- Buddy partners can eat with each other for breakfast of lunch; this may be used as an incentive or for modeling opportunities.

17) Crosswalk/Dismissal Partners -- Older buddies can support younger students across the crosswalks either coming to school or at dismissal; older students can help their little buddies with any other high traffic areas before or after school.

18) Reward Incentives -- A classroom can earn points to spend more time with their buddy classroom; or another variation is when both classrooms attain a certain specified goal then they get to do something fun together.

19) History Partners -- Buddies can partner up to learn history; older students can help research historical people, places, or events; students can create a project together; students can partner to create a wax museum and share out their historical figure.

RELATED - Free Teacher Lesson Plans

MORE BULLYING PREVENTION GUIDE RELATED READINGS:

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19 Ideas Showcasing Power of Buddy Classrooms | Teacher.org

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Jon Konen School Principal Back to the main Bully Prevention Guide. Read to me, draw with me...let's create something together! Creating a community of learners in a school can be done in many ways by students and staff.

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Having students act out scenarios that they may encounter in real life will help them practice their reactions to situations.

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Allowing students to have a platform to express their concerns is a great thing. Now allowing them to express their classroom will give them a sense of belonging and ownership in their second home.