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For students around the globe, life may be a bit upside down right now. The structure of their days has changed, where they are learning has changed, and many are working alone for hours each day. It might be difficult for them to envision when things will go back to"normal" or when they'll be able to get back to doing what they love. To help imagine a better future, we wanted to share a few vision board ideas for students in elementary, middle, and high school.

Your students will cut out or draw images that reflect their goals, aspirations, and dreams. For the younger students, the vision board ideas have a bit of structure, and for the older students, it is free-form. Here are a few of the prompts we provide:

I would love to visit

This brings me joy

I am proud of myself for

I would love to be this when I am older

This color makes me feel happy

Some of my dreams and goals are

Ask you students to do the following:

Think about the prompts provided and/or create additional ones

Create or collect materials that help them answer the prompts

Assemble their board

Dispaly their board

And with a completed vision board, students will have a positive daily reminder of what is possible even though every day feels the same. In addition to the worksheets, we have also provided some additional resources including supplies, books, and lessons that can help students with goal setting and growth mindset.
Additional Resources: Vision board supplies: Books: Follow up lessons:

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Vision Board Ideas for Students in Elementary and Middle School

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For students around the globe, life may be a bit upside down right now. The structure of their days has changed, where they are learning has changed, and many are working alone for hours each day. It might be difficult for them to envision when things will go back to"normal" or when they'll be able to get back to doing what they love.

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Virtual Icebreakers and Connection Activities

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Apr 3, 2020 - Virtual Icebreakers and Connection Activities I will admit that Virtual Team Building activities stretch me.  I really want to be intentional with the time I have with a group, and […]

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Jan 25, 2019 - Would you rather questions for kids are a great way to make dinner time more fun. These free printable would you rather questions will engage your kids too.

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Welcome Back! - SEL in Trauma Informed Care - Google Slides

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Welcome Back! - SEL in Trauma Informed Care - Google Slides

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Fourth-grade teacher Todd Flory enjoys reading Harry Potter with his students at Wheatland Elementary in Wichita, Kansas. But captivated as the kids are by Quidditch, floating candles, and paintings that talk, Flory is working with them on something else-building empathy.

"We use the book to talk about the importance of understanding and accepting people who are different," Flory says. Through the medium of books, he feels he is helping students become more sensitive to the feelings and experiences of others.

Research supports the idea that reading can expand students' worldviews and build empathy. In an article in an American Psychological Association journal, academics from Italy and the United Kingdom found that the Harry Potter books in particular helped students gain an understanding of others. That's important, says David Kidd, a postdoctoral fellow at the Harvard Graduate School of Education who has studied empathy and literature. "We tend not to extend empathy to people in other groups as readily as we do to people in our own groups. By reading stories showing people who are different from us, it helps us see them as full people."

Author Alan Gratz, whose book Refugee tells stories of children fleeing persecution, hopes his novel opens students' minds and hearts to diverse experiences. "The plight of refugees is so far removed from many children's lives, thankfully. But that distance means they are often unable to understand who these people are, and why they're walking for days and weeks and thousands of miles to find new homes," Gratz says. (His latest book, Grenade, deals with moral issues faced by Japanese teens during World War II.)

Want to use fiction, nonfiction, and poetry to build empathy and develop students' literacy skills? Read on!

Learn From Fiction

"Literature is an excellent tool for building empathy. It's like a match made in heaven," says Heather Schwartz, practice specialist at the Collaborative for Academic, Social and Emotional Learning. "When we read stories, we ask ourselves, 'Why is the character doing this? What's going on with him or her?'"

Consider Wonder, by R. J. Palacio. It's told from various perspectives and is about a boy named August who has facial deformities and is encountering school for the first time. One study conducted by a psychology professor at Virginia's Mary Baldwin University in collaboration with a sixth-grade English teacher found that sixth graders who read Wonder showed improvement in looking at things from others' perspectives. That's no surprise to third-grade teacher Stacie Delaney, who teaches at Tabernacle Elementary School in New Jersey and has read the book with her students. "One of my students has a significant disability; she used to have a tracheostomy tube. My students understand that in the book, August looks different but that's okay. We all look different," she says.

Justin Minkel was teaching in New York City when terrorists struck on September 11, 2001. In the aftermath, Minkel noticed his fourth graders had absorbed negative stereotypes about Middle Easterners. He responded by bringing in books aimed at shattering those stereotypes, such as The Day of Ahmed's Secret, by Florence Parry Heide and Judith Heide Gilliland, about a boy in Cairo. He had students write down what they thought they knew about people from the Middle East and then reexamine their assumptions after reading this book and others. "I asked, 'Are the things we thought really right?' And they realized they were not," he says.

Author Kelly Yang, whose book Front Desk tells the story of an immigrant couple and their daughter, Mia, who manage a motel, says kids like to read about characters who are relatable. "Mia's problems feel real and immediate to kids because they care about her," Yang says.

Delaney urges fellow teachers to be intentional about introducing empathy lessons. She suggests framing conversations about books with empathy-driven questions, like asking students how they think characters feel. Writing assignments on perspective are helpful, as is asking kids to act out a story.

Go Deep With Nonfiction

Kids love to learn through storytelling, whether it's fiction or nonfiction, says Lauren Tarshis, editor-in-chief and publisher of Scholastic Classroom Magazines and author of the best-selling I Survived book series. She often hears from teachers whose students were inspired by an article in one of the magazines-water needs in Africa, a hurricane in the United States-to sell lemonade or T-shirts to raise money. "Teachers are sharing a story, and watching how it becomes a catalyst for kids to want to learn more, to take action, and to connect with people they might not have connected with before," Tarshis explains. One article that drew strong student reaction was about a baby elephant named Ishanga, orphaned in the Tsavo National Park in Kenya after poachers killed his mother. The article described Ishanga's rescue, and teachers reported that students were raising money to "adopt" orphaned elephants, even in lieu of having a classroom pet.

At Westland Middle School in Bethesda, Maryland, all students read the same book each summer. Rachel Johns, the International Baccalaureate Middle Years Programme Coordinator, seeks out books that develop empathy. She has used I Am Malala, the autobiography of Malala Yousafzai, an advocate for girls' education in Pakistan who was shot by the Taliban. "It's our responsibility as a school to implement lessons that encourage students to take a walk in someone else's shoes," says Johns.

Perrine Punwani, an English language arts teacher at Hardy Middle School in Washington, D.C., likes to pair fiction and nonfiction. In conjunction with A Raisin in the Sun, a play by Lorraine Hansberry about a family living in segregated 1950s Chicago, Punwani has her students study maps to better understand segregation. She also guides the class through related discussions about identity, discrimination, and cultural pride.

Build Empathy With Poetry

A Raisin in the Sun references a Langston Hughes poem, "Harlem (Dream Deferred)," in which the poet writes, "What happens to a dream deferred? Does it dry up like a raisin in the sun?" Punwani assigns the poem before reading the play and asks students to think about what it would feel like to delay their dreams.

Reading and writing poetry can be a powerful exercise in empathy building. "When we read poetry, we can inhabit the lives of others," says poet and writer Georgia Heard. She points to another Hughes poem, "Mother to Son," in which he writes, "Life for me ain't been no crystal stair." This kind of imagery can stir emotion and build empathy among readers, she notes.

Shari Carter, who teaches kindergarten at Cecil D. Andrus Elementary School, in Boise, Idaho, says she loves reading the Shel Silverstein verse book The Giving Tree. "It's been a favorite of my students," she says of the story about a friendship between a boy and a tree and how it changes over time. "There are so many things to explore."

At School Within School, in Washington, D.C., third-grade co-teachers Fran Ewart and Tina DeAnna start the year with the poem "If I Were in Charge of the World," by Judith Viorst, written from the perspective of a child. They ask students to write and share a poem of their own with the same title and theme, which helps them better understand one another's aspirations.

Vered Brooks, who teaches grades 5-7 at The Acera School, in Winchester, Massachusetts, says The Crossover, a novel in verse by Kwame Alexander, is a favorite. The story examines the hardships of adolescence and loss. "Through language like metaphor, we can access some really difficult things in the book," says Brooks, adding that some of her students cried at the end. "They realized he's a kid like them-but not like them."

Photo: FatCamera/Getty Images
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Building Empathy With Stories | Scholastic

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Fourth-grade teacher Todd Flory enjoys reading Harry Potter with his students at Wheatland Elementary in Wichita, Kansas. But captivated as the kids are by Quidditch, floating candles, and paintings that talk, Flory is working with them on something else-building empathy. "We use the book to talk about the importance of understanding and accepting people who are different," Flory says.

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ELA and SEL Life lessons from sports for both on and off the field. | Scholastic

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Grades 6-8

At Committee for Children, we strive to foster the safety and well-being of children through social-emotional learning and development. Part of that goal is to teach students about diversity and inclusivity. This exercise, which is adapted from one of our Second Step Middle School Program's Advisory Activities, helps students talk about what may be challenging about understanding other people's differences and how to accept and celebrate them.

Objective: Examine the benefits of having friends who are different

If possible, seat the class in a circle.

Sit where you can participate comfortably in the discussion.

Class Meeting Instructions

Have everyone in the class (including you!) briefly answer the following question: Are your friends similar to you or different from you?

As a class, discuss one or more of the following prompts:

What can make it difficult to make friends with someone who is a different gender, race, or ethnicity?

How can you overcome these difficulties?

Tell us about a friendship you have with someone who's different from you.

Why is this friendship important?

Have the class reflect quietly about the following prompt:

What are some benefits of being friends with people who are different from you?

Call on students to tell the class their ideas, as time allows.

Like this activity?

We're adding more K-8 classroom activities to our Free Activities page all the time. They're easy to find-just visit cfchildren.org/resources/free-activities/ for grade-specific, K-8 classroom activities that align with our Second Step Suite.

Learn more about social-emotional learning, research on the topic, and how it benefits students in the classroom, at home, and in their daily lives.

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Class Meeting: Different from You-Activity - Committee for Children

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Grades 6-8 At Committee for Children, we strive to foster the safety and well-being of children through social-emotional learning and development. Part of that goal is to teach students about diversity and inclusivity.

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"Our emotions are put in this compartment with a massive stigma around it that it is just not cool to feel. We have to make it cool to feel again."
- Lady Gaga, 2015 Emotion Revolution Summit

At the core of student success in middle and high school, five critical factors have been identified: academic behaviors, academic perseverance, academic mindsets, learning strategies, and social skills. ¹ The same research found that attitudes, behaviors, and skills are also important elements of adolescent learning; test scores alone are only one part of academic performance. A recent brief from the Edna Bennett Pierce Prevention Research Center further noted that social-emotional learning (SEL) is essential for success in school, work, and life. ²

Researchers' emphasis on the middle and high school years as a critical period for developing adolescents' social-emotional competencies is echoed by secondary students themselves, who say even more about why SEL should be at the forefront of middle and high school education.

When secondary students are given a voice in identifying what they need and want, they advocate forcefully for the high value of addressing the social and emotional aspects of their experience. Results from a Yale Center for Emotional Intelligence online survey ³ of 22,000 high school youth present reveal that emotions play a big role in adolescent lives. For example, students identify "happy," "excited," and "energized" as the top three emotions they want to experience more of in school.

High school students speak to social-emotional learning, showing us that we should not stop supporting social-emotional learning after elementary school because the need for SEL supports continues throughout the secondary school years. For example, many high school students report that social and emotional problems make it difficult for them to learn and do their best. ⁴

Handling High School Challenges

High schoolers also make it clear that we must not wait until high school to start SEL foundations. Their responses remind us that if social-emotional learning competencies and needs are continually supported throughout middle school, and if support for managing feelings and peer relations is kept at the forefront before kids get to high school, this effectively prepares students for facing the many challenges of high school, such as:

Managing stress-Stress weighs down high school students. In the Yale high school survey, students said they felt stressed 80 percent of the time.³ Another recent report found that 73 percent of high school students say they feel stressed out at least some of the time, and of those, 31 percent report feeling feel stressed out most or all of the time,⁴ suggesting a need for skills and strategies to help cope with stress.

Handling mistakes-Only 52 percent of high school students say they feel comfortable participating and taking risks even if it means making mistakes.⁴ Many hold themselves back because they are afraid of making mistakes, showing the potential need for a variety of skills such as recognizing strengths, setting and working toward personal goals, managing let-downs, and solving problems.

Establishing and maintaining healthy relationships-About 42 percent of high school students feel lonely at least some of the time at school; 15 percent feel this way most or all of the time.⁴ Relationship skills such as communication and relationship building, and self-awareness skills such as recognizing strengths and self-confidence, could help secondary students effectively manage such feelings and potentially reduce feelings and situations of loneliness.

Considering how to best incorporate social-emotional learning into secondary school practices takes time and effort. The Second Step Middle School Program offers resources for doing so, with its built-in lessons and activities that can be easily incorporated into middle school advisories.

Middle School Students: Never Too Old for Social-Emotional Learning

There are people who say that middle school students are too old for SEL, or that they should already have mastered SEL skills by that age. Others think that middle school students are not interested in talking about SEL skills. High school students counter these notions by reminding us that we are never too old for SEL supports.

When considering how to put social-emotional learning at the forefront for your secondary or middle school students, consider these words about SEL from two high school students:

"I wish we learned some of this in middle school."

"I think I would have gotten better grades freshman year if I knew how to plan and to deal with the stress of taking all those tests."

Research References

1 Farrington, C.A, Roderick, M., Allensworth, E., Nagaoka, J., Keyes, T. S., Johnson, D. W., & Beechum, N. O. (2012). Teaching adolescents to become learners: The role of noncognitive factors in shaping school performance. Chicago: University of Chicago, Consortium on Chicago School Research.

2 Domitrovich, C.E., Syvertsen, A. K., & Calin, S. S. (2017). Promoting social and emotional learning in the middle and high school years. Edna Bennett Pierce Prevention Research Center, Pennsylvania State University.

3 Brackett, M., & Born This Way Foundation. (2015). The emotion revolution: What we learned from the young people. https://bornthisway.foundation/the-emotion-revolution-what-we-learned-from-the-young-people/

4 DePaoli, J.L., Atwell, M.N., Bridgeland, J.M., Shriver, T.P. (2018). Respected: Perspectives of Youth on High School & Social and Emotional Learning (Report). Chicago: CASEL.

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High Schoolers Voice the Value of Social-Emotional Learning: Middle School SEL Matters - Committee for Children

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"Our emotions are put in this compartment with a massive stigma around it that it is just not cool to feel. We have to make it cool to feel again." - Lady Gaga, 2015 Emotion Revolution Summit At the core of student success in middle and high school, five critical factors have been identified: academic behaviors, academic perseverance, academic mindsets, learning strategies, and social skills.

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Can use this activity in a digital circle.

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Can use this activity in a digital circle.

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Grades 6-8

At Committee for Children, we strive to foster the safety and well-being of children through social-emotional learning and development. Part of that goal is to teach students about diversity and inclusivity. This exercise, which is adapted from one of our Second Step Middle School Program's Advisory Activities, helps students talk about what may be challenging about understanding other people's differences and how to accept and celebrate them.

Objective: Examine the benefits of having friends who are different

If possible, seat the class in a circle.

Sit where you can participate comfortably in the discussion.

Class Meeting Instructions

Have everyone in the class (including you!) briefly answer the following question: Are your friends similar to you or different from you?

As a class, discuss one or more of the following prompts:

What can make it difficult to make friends with someone who is a different gender, race, or ethnicity?

How can you overcome these difficulties?

Tell us about a friendship you have with someone who's different from you.

Why is this friendship important?

Have the class reflect quietly about the following prompt:

What are some benefits of being friends with people who are different from you?

Call on students to tell the class their ideas, as time allows.

Like this activity?

We're adding more K-8 classroom activities to our Free Activities page all the time. They're easy to find-just visit cfchildren.org/resources/free-activities/ for grade-specific, K-8 classroom activities that align with our Second Step Suite.

Learn more about social-emotional learning, research on the topic, and how it benefits students in the classroom, at home, and in their daily lives.

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Class Meeting: Different from You-Activity - Committee for Children

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Grades 6-8 At Committee for Children, we strive to foster the safety and well-being of children through social-emotional learning and development. Part of that goal is to teach students about diversity and inclusivity.

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Making friends, especially in middle school, can be tough. Forming and nurturing relationships take skill, time, and effort, but it's worth it. This engaging activity helps middle school students establish and build friendships with classmates in a safe way-and practice socializing away from their smartphones.

Grades 6-8

Teachers and educators, here's what you need to know for this easy 10-minute relationship-building activity.

Preparation: Arrange chairs in two rows facing each other.

Materials: A stopwatch or other timer

Activity Instructions

Start by introducing the Fast Friends activity to your class with this script: Today's challenge will help us get to know each other-fast. We're going to take turns describing ourselves in 30 seconds or less, so start thinking about what you'd most like other people to know about you.

Steps

1. Have the students sit in two rows facing each other.

2. How would you describe yourself in 30 seconds or less? Have students quietly think of a quick self-description. They could include things they like to do, what's most important to them, or what makes them a good friend.

3. Choose one row to start.

4. When I say "go," everyone in the first row will have 30 seconds to describe themselves to the person opposite them. Then it'll be the other row's turn. I'll tell you when it's time to switch. Ready? Go. Start the 30-second timer.

5. After 30 seconds, say: Time's up. It's the other side's turn now. Have the students in the other row describe themselves to the person opposite them while you time them for 30 seconds.

6. After students from both rows have participated, have everyone stand up and move one chair to the right. Students at the end of a row will move to the beginning of the same row.

7. Repeat Steps 4 to 6, as time allows.

Reflection

Ask: Did you learn something new about someone in this class? What did the person say that caught your interest?

Give students time to think, then call on them to tell the class their ideas.

Like this activity?

We're adding more free PreK-8 classroom activities all the time. See grade-specific activities that align with Second Step Social-Emotional Learning for schools.

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Class Challenge: Make Fast Friends | Committee for Children

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Making friends, especially in middle school, can be tough. Forming and nurturing relationships take skill, time, and effort, but it's worth it. This engaging activity helps middle school students establish and build friendships with classmates in a safe way-and practice socializing away from their smartphones.

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With most schools and districts shut down for the foreseeable future, many faculty and teachers are struggling to find ways to connect with their students. One idea that keeps popping up on our Principal Life Facebook group is the concept of a virtual theme week.

Schools implement theme weeks as a way to build school spirit ... and there's no reason to stop doing so just because the classrooms have been shifted to distance learning. Instead, just have your theme week go virtual too! Post the themes ahead of time and encourage students (or their parents) to email in images or videos, or post them on social media and tag the correct account to share. Students can even use creative photo or video editing if they don't have the appropriate theme attire to wear. ( Note: Theme weeks are meant to be inclusive and we have a resource of theme days that schools should avoid.)

Here are 20 virtual theme day ideas to get you started:

Comfy Sweats or PJ Day

Fostertown put together a theme week and their Monday encouraged comfortable clothing for all students and teachers. We can definitely get behind that!

Inside Out Day

The perfect spirit day to do when the clothes are running low!

Sports/Game Day

Sports may be canceled, but it doesn't mean you can't pull out these sports outfits or support your favorite teams.

Source: @bulldogbae's spirit week

Work Out Day

Have students post a bit of exercising to share with their classmates.

School Colors Day

Let's have a little twitter fun! Join us in our Virtual Spirit Week and post a picture each day with the following themes. Make sure to tag @Kenwood_SGA Monday-Pajama Day, Tuesday-St Paddy's Day, Wednesday- Whatcha reading? Thursday-Spring, Friday-Bluebird Pride! @BPowell_BCPS pic.twitter.com/sJ1bZ1eq2c

- KenwoodSGA (@Kenwood_SGA) March 16, 2020

Have students show off their school spirit wear or clothing in your school colors.

Stuffed Animal Day

The perfect virtual spirit week theme to showcase the stuffed animals in our lives.

Literacy Day

Woodmont's Virtual spirit week Day 3- show us what you're reading or pictures of you reading 📚📖#Woodmonthappenings @MontvilleTwpSch pic.twitter.com/5e78qhskVT

- Woodmont School (@Paws_Pride) March 18, 2020

Have students show off their favorite books, dress up like their favorite characters, or even submit a short video of them reading their favorite book aloud!

Superhero Day

Students can don their favorite superhero costumes, make a cape from a blanket, or even show off their "good deeds" for the day.

Wellness Wednesday

Let's not forget how stressful these times are. Students can post their favorite yoga moves or meditation clips.

Source: @bulldogbaes

Future Day

Have students think outside the box and put together something that futuristic to share.

STEM Day

Have students share their favorite STEM activity or creation.

Source: @paxtoniael

Celebrity Look-A-Like Day

Has anyone ever said you look like a famous person? Now's the time for students to style themselves and take on another persona for a day!

Red, White, and Blue

Show that together we stand.

Source: @clark_school_counseling_dept

Decade Day

Have students dig through their parents' closets to relive a particular decade.

Make a Creation Day

Join us in doing a virtual theme week with your students! Students will send pictures through @ClassDojo and we will choose the 10 best to post at the end of the day! #TheVincentWay #StayingConnected @faziojennifer5 @PaulKishEdu pic.twitter.com/3weGM18YEQ

- Lynne Stark (@lstark25) March 18, 2020

Encourage students to get creative and share their end results.

Global Day

Since everyone is more or less stuck at home, have students pick a country and represent that place for a day. (Perhaps even share a yummy recipe!)

Nature Scavenger Hunt Day

Let's stay connected. We are going to have a "Virtual Spirit Week". All you have to do is snap a pic of your child participating in the daily theme and post it under the given post! Have fun!#templeisd pic.twitter.com/U4puUUyTfS

- Thornton T-Birds (@thorntontbirds) March 16, 2020

Pick a color and have students go in search of it outdoors

Neon Day

Have students go all out in neon. Clothes. Hair. Whatever they've got on hand!

Crazy Socks

We love that this school attached it to laundry day!

Source: @cragernation

Parent Day

Showcase the parents, have the students dress up like the parents, or even showcase what working from home might look like.
What are your favorite virtual theme week ideas? We'd love to hear about them in our Principal Life group on Facebook. Plus, don't miss our theme ideas to avoid .

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Schools Are Hosting Virtual Theme Weeks to Cheer Up Quarantined Kids

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With most schools and districts shut down for the foreseeable future, many faculty and teachers are struggling to find ways to connect with their students. One idea that keeps popping up on our Principal Life Facebook group is the concept of a virtual theme week.

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It's important to practice self-care, but doing so on a regular basis can be challenging at the best of times! One way you can develop your own self-care practices, as Read More "

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There seems to be a preparation gap between what our students are learning in school and what they actually need to succeed. The big missing piece is the cultivation of social-emotional competence. Schools that provide tools and programs to develop these skills report students do much better academically and feel better prepared for life than those who don't.

In fact, a recent study reports that 88 percent of students, regardless of race or socioeconomic status, who attend schools with a strong SEL curriculum feel motivated to work hard and do their best in school, compared to just 39 percent of students from schools without an emphasis on SEL.

Social-Emotional Skills That Make a Difference: Self-Regulation

Among the spectrum of social-emotional skills, self-regulation, the ability to manage emotions, focus, and handle frustration, is one of the most important. But, is self-regulation a skill that can be explicitly taught? And, what does it look like when schools tackle the skill? This is how three schools are making self-regulation a part of their routine and how you can, too.

Setting the Stage: Nonnegotiables

The staff at Tumwater High School in Tumwater, WA, started teaching SEL skills three years ago when they noticed a group of 10th graders falling behind in their classes. In response, the team created a course that brought at-risk students together for SEL instruction and mentoring. From there, says Lisa Perriera, assistant principal, the SEL focus expanded across the building. It's been a multiyear process with core values and nonnegotiables established first. Creating one set of values and rules provided the backdrop for students to practice monitoring their behavior.

The energy in Tumwater's hallways and classrooms is calmer with the new nonnegotiables, and the front office is quiet. As teachers have reminded students of the first nonnegotiable (We have all the tech you need), referrals for inappropriate cell phone behavior have dropped. When everyone knows the expectation, according to Perriera, it makes it easier for the students to regulate their behavior. Now that the rules around technology are firmly in place, the faculty has moved on to reinforce their next nonnegotiable: being in class on time.

The Secret Weapon: Peer Mentors

Each year, Jaime MacEwen, teacher at Cumberland Regional High School in Bridgeton, NJ, reviews incoming freshmen data to see who may need an SEL boost the most. Incoming ninth graders, who have struggled with academics, attendance, or managing their schedules, are assigned to a freshman SEL seminar. MacEwen's secret weapon: upperclassmen. Seniors who are models of self-regulation themselves, with organized binders, extracurricular participation, and straight-A records, lead freshmen seminars as mentors.

The magic is in their relationships. As at-risk freshmen build relationships with their mentors, they see what self-regulation looks like in high school. They learn how to manage their own schedules and workload. Having a role model to follow and someone to problem-solve with helps freshmen develop important organization and problem-solving skills. The instruction and mentor relationships pay off. Students in the freshman seminar overwhelmingly pass their classes and form relationships that outlast the school year. "It's the little things that we see," says MacEwen, "that are the biggest win."

Stop and Breathe: Add Weekly Yoga

Each week for 30 minutes, students in grades six through 12 take a deep breath and begin their yoga practice at Ann Richards School for Young Women Leaders in Austin, TX. Although a tad uncomfortable at first, it doesn't take long for the sixth graders to buy in. By senior year, some students lead sessions. The 30-minute yoga practice includes breathing exercises and encourages students to check in with the physical sensations in their bodies. From there, they learn techniques to regulate their emotions.

"You'll hear students say they're carrying their stress in their shoulders," says counselor Jane Howk, "and then they'll take a few deep breaths to relax and refocus." Yoga also teaches students how to verbalize what's happening in their bodies and how to fix it. "They notice how their bodies react to different situations," says Howk. "They're more in tune and can apply yoga skills to lots of situations."

Five Ways to Start Teaching Self-Regulation Today

Establishing nonnegotiables and teaching freshman seminar and yoga classes all sound awesome. But, what can you do to begin self-regulation instruction right now? Here are five ways to get started:

1. Teach students to name their emotions.

Instead of complaining that they're stressed, the counseling staff at Ann Richards School for Young Women Leaders helps students identify the actual emotions they're feeling. This helps them deal with what's really going on so they can implement a problem-solving process and move forward.

2. Teach self-regulation explicitly.

Teach self-regulation the same way you'd teach math or science: with explicit instruction, modeling, and practice. For example, a lesson defining self-regulation could transition into a fishbowl activity in which students give input about tricky situations and ways to deal with them.

3. Practice, practice, practice.

When it comes to self-regulation, practice can make perfect. Create scenarios that students can role-play to practice applying self-regulation habits before they're in the heat of the moment. The more students practice, the better able they'll be able to self-regulate in the moment.

4. Reset with a mindfulness activity.

If you feel your group of students veering off course, take a page from the Ann Richards School playbook and have students do a mindfulness activity. For example, have students look around the room (silently) and find five blue items, four red items, three green items, two yellow items, and one black item. Then, once students are more centered, return to the problem at hand.

5. Empower students to monitor their progress.

Students in the freshman seminar at Cumberland Regional High School monitor their grades closely, which helps them manage their workload and progress. Help students identify a data point to monitor (attendance, grades, etc.) and create a procedure to help them track their progress and identify next steps.

Explicit skills instruction ensures that we do not rely on student assumptions, but that we purposefully teach students the skills to navigate their world. Social-emotional development can be fostered in a variety of ways to support student success. Explicitly identifying and teaching the skills is important, but it's of equal importance to do it consistently and often. Knowing the what and why of explicit social-emotional-skills instruction can help you make a well-thought-out decision on how to best foster students' skill development.
Thanks to our friends at The Allstate Foundation for sponsoring this and other SEL articles. Check out their resources. Plus, 12 Fun Ways to Build SEL Skills During Advisory or Homeroom

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Think Self-Regulation Can't Be Taught? These 3 Schools Are Doing It

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There seems to be a preparation gap between what our students are learning in school and what they actually need to succeed. The big missing piece is the cultivation of social-emotional competence. Schools that provide tools and programs to develop these skills report students do much better academically and feel better prepared for life than those who don't.

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COVID-19 Morning Meeting and Responsive Advisory Meeting Downloads | Responsive Classroom

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Thank you for completing the form. Please enjoy these resources. Elementary Resources Middle School Resources Thank you to our Morning Meeting Contributing Teachers: Thank you to our Responsive Advisory Meeting Contributing Teachers:

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For nearly every teacher I've ever met, morning meeting is the teeth brushing of the classroom-it feels good, it's good for you, and it has lasting effects. The human connection made during morning meeting might feel different online, but it's no less valuable. Here's what it can look like in K-12 online classrooms:

#1 Rule For All Ages: Don't make online morning meeting mandatory

I know this goes against everything you want for your students. How can they benefit from something if they aren't there? But these times call for flexibility and support. So instead of making anyone feel badly for not making it to a meeting-in some cases it's outside their control-let's try to make online morning meetings too irresistible to miss.

Tips for Elementary Online Morning Meetings

Include everyone who used to be in the classroom on the call

Kids need predictability and consistency more than ever. If you had an aide in the classroom or your morning meeting involved a co-teacher, ask them to join the meeting.

I teach k-2nd grade kiddos with ASD! I wasn't sure how it would go or how many of my students would get on. But it went amazingly well. We had our classroom aides join us and we did our typical morning meeting routine. I couldn't be prouder of them. They were waving at each other and saying hello to one another (they never did in class) ... they sang with the songs, parents were helping them form the ASL signs (as part of our meeting we do ASL and visual phonics). Parents were singing and participating with the students and loved learning the ASL signs with their students! -Patricia Ann Coates, Reno-Stead, Nevada

Show up early

Even the bravest students don't like to be alone in a morning meeting. Show up five minutes early and have casual conversation as students join one by one. My daughter's teacher welcomes each student as they join and I can hear them happily greet her as well.

Take attendance so you can connect with every child

No matter how many students are on the call, I find calling each one by name and asking them a question helps them stay connected. Even the shyest of students lights up when asked about a puppy or the blueberry pancakes still on their face. Keep a list of your students next to your computer and check off each as you talk with them. If there are kids not on the call, mention their names each call and ask anyone if they've heard from them. Say out loud that you miss them. I've found word gets around quickly and even if some students never get on the call because they can't, they'll love knowing they were missed.

Give them a method for response

You'll find out quickly that others get cut off if more than one person speaks at a time. With a lot of children on a call, you'll want a system for responses. Consider asking yes/no questions so they can use thumbs up and thumbs down. Or ask your students for a solution that works for everyone. Think of these first weeks with online morning meeting as September all over again. It'll probably go more quickly, though, since you already know each other so well.

I am learning to ask some questions they can answer with or . I also use the mute feature and I unmute them one at a time to share. -Nicona Becker, Westerville, Ohio

Read a book aloud

If you are in a group with just your students, it's okay to be reading a picture book aloud online (according to copyright rules). This is a perfect activity to keep kids engaged and excited to hear your voice. They miss you and this might be the only chance they get to hear a story each day. Want some ideas for books to read? Check out our Best Books For the Classroom by Grade & Topic.

Have a morning message ready

You'll want to jump right into something kids can do right away. Having a morning message gives everyone the chance to participate. Here are some great morning messages to get you started.

Send a postcard reminder about morning meeting

Many families don't know how to stay connected online and they aren't looking at school or district announcements. Getting a handwritten postcard from you letting them know that you miss them during morning meeting might make a big difference.

Keep it short

This connection is so important, so anything that makes kids disengage should be avoided. For that reason let kids know exactly how long the morning meeting will last and stick to that time. You might even have an onscreen timer running so kids know what to expect. For younger children, 10 minutes is probably the right amount of time. Older children might be able to stay engaged in an online meeting for 15-20 minutes.

Tips for Middle and High School Online Morning Meetings

Much of the suggestions provided for elementary morning meetings will hold true for this older age group, but here are a few that are more specific to students in middle and high school.

Make morning meeting mandatory (if possible)

Call the meeting whatever you like, but make sure students know that logging on is your preference. Yes, there are still some kids unable to logon, but for those kids who can make it, this may be the only thing that keeps them connected. It's hard enough as a tween or teen to stay focused and motivated. If you make the meeting a very short check-in, you have the opportunity to make a lasting impression all day long.

Open the door to questions

One of the toughest life skills to learn is to be brave enough to ask questions that clear up confusion. Use morning meeting as a way to ask if anyone had trouble with a difficult problem. "Did anyone have trouble with problem number 15?" When you put such a specific question out there, you model for kids how to ask questions. Talk about metacognition skills and the different thought processes they might use to come to a solution. Your students will realize that they don't have to be confused when they are learning at home alone.

Do an activity once a week

If kids only logon once a week, consider adapting some of these activities to suit online learning. This time to share can be helpful for keeping kids connected to school and engaged with their peers.

Using morning meeting for 5-20 minutes of your day might end up being the best part of everyone's day. We all need to connect and here are some ways to make that possible.
Check out more ways teachers are building community online.

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Morning Meetings Provide the Ritual and Community Kids Need Right Now

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For nearly every teacher I've ever met, morning meeting is the teeth brushing of the classroom-it feels good, it's good for you, and it has lasting effects. The human connection made during morning meeting might feel different online, but it's no less valuable.

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The National Child Traumatic Stress Network

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Discusses how challenging financial circumstances affect communities, their organizations, their members' sense of safety and ability to calm, self- and community- efficacy, connectedness, and hope.

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Coping in Hard Times: Fact Sheet for School Staff

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Discusses how challenging financial circumstances affect communities, their organizations, their members' sense of safety and ability to calm, self- and community- efficacy, connectedness, and hope.

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As university professors and researchers who work closely with K-12 online teachers and learners, we've heard from many newly remote educators who are struggling. Recent class discussions have focused on the difficulties of getting through to students without in-person contact, especially during a time of enormous stress. Some teachers report that their students lack interest and in the worst cases, that students are dropping from classes entirely.

From our experience both in the online classroom and in training teachers to teach online, this is familiar territory and typically happens about six weeks into a new school session. The newness has worn off, the excitement around technology wanes and teachers often struggle finding ways to engage with their students.

The crucial question that has emerged is: how do we engage learners when we are not together physically? It's a complicated question, even in the best of times-one that has been at the forefront of our daily online teaching practice and our research into the online behaviors and interactions that can have the greatest impact on successful learner outcomes. Thankfully, research into online learning can provide us with a starting point to make sure our students continue to be engaged in the process of learning.

There isn't one solution for increasing learner engagement and motivation. Online teachers need to combine multiple strategies to reach learners, such as strengthening relationships with learners, engaging families and helping learners connect with their peers. But building strong relationships online is difficult.

What Is Engagement and Why Is It So Important to the Learning Process?

In its simplest form, engagement is a measure of how much we are attending to a purpose, task or activity. When it comes to learning, engagement is influenced by a learner's level of motivation, focus and cognitive ability as well as online course design and a teacher's decisions regarding facilitation style.

Grounded in the learning sciences, engagement is deepest in environments that support fostering relationships, productive instructional strategies, and social and emotional development. Engaged learners demonstrate stronger satisfaction with learning experiences, stronger achievement in courses and increased graduation rates.

Researchers identify three primary components of learner engagement for in-person and online settings: behavioral, cognitive and emotional. In other words, we know that learners are engaged if they exhibit behaviors, thinking processes or emotions that indicate they are connecting with course materials, with the teacher and with each other.

Measuring these types of engagement is easier said than done, though researchers have settled on some common approaches in traditional classrooms that can easily be translated to the online classroom, where research isn't as far along. Some of these measures will be more difficult for teachers to assess, and some may require teachers to understand and use the analytics capabilities of online tools. Teachers needn't collect data on every single measure, but having familiarity with the following common measurements will allow teachers to determine which factors they can reasonably assess according to the type of engagement they hope to spur.

Types of engagement with common measurements for virtual settings

How can we make the leap from this research to practical application in the remote classroom? The Adolescent Community of Engagement Framework proposed by Jered Borup, Richard West, Charles Graham and Randall Davies gives us one approach. These researchers argue that student engagement is created and enhanced by the involvement of three key players in any K-12 online learning experience: teachers, parents and peers.

Adolescent Community of Engagement Framework: A Lens for Research in K-12 Online Learning Environments hypothesizes that as parent, teacher, and peer engagement increase, student engagement will likely increase until it fills the area indicated by the dotted line. Image credit: Jered Borup, Richard West, Charles Graham and Randall Davies. Used with permission.

How Teachers Can Increase Learner Engagement in a Remote Classroom

One of the most consistent findings in engagement research is that a teacher has an enormous impact on the student's experience, influencing everything from students' perceived learning and self efficacy to their motivation. Being an engaged teacher online means being visible in the class, whether that's through discussion posts, announcements or assignment feedback. Teachers can emphasize their visibility and overall engagement in a remote classroom by implementing these practices:

Post regular announcements: A funny video or meme along with a hello and a weekly reminder of due dates can go a long way in reconnecting learners.

Reply early and often: Students need to feel that teachers are immediately available to help and may feel isolated when educators take a full business day to respond to a request for help. Quick communication builds connection.

Vary communication tools: Teachers should consider the communication preferences of individual students and make sure that their tools are best positioned to respond to students' questions. Phone calls, synchronous video tools, instant messaging or texting are all good options to use in combination, depending on the district's communication policies and student preferences.

Use feedback to build relationships: Providing personalized feedback to let students know their work has been reviewed can strengthen relations. Video feedback is also effective in building a connection with learners.

Physical connections under social distancing: Teacher parades and chalk messages on students' sidewalks are a great example of recent efforts teachers have taken to demonstrate their level of commitment to maintain high levels of engagement with their students. Similar online approaches such as recorded or live book readings and virtual office hours can be just as effective.

How Teachers Can Increase Parent Engagement in a Remote Classroom

Research has shown that the involvement of a responsible adult, typically a parent, is critical to the success of online learners. K-12 learners need the support of a caring adult to build executive functioning, manage their workload and maintain motivation. Teachers can support parents in this role by implementing a few key practices:

Connect with parents: Phone calls, texts and friendly emails help parents feel connected, realizing that the teacher is there to support the entire family.

Provide a schedule: Parents can use a schedule that shows the days and times of synchronous classes and includes what activities students should be working on each day to help keep students on task.

Offer tech support: Teachers can create short videos to help parents understand how to access their online content.

Less is more: Parents can quickly become inundated with well-intentioned emails from various teachers. Keeping emails short and focused is best.

Survey parents: Periodic, brief surveys can help teachers understand what support parents need.

How Teachers Can Facilitate Connections Between Students in a Remote Classroom

Research shows that students who feel connected to other learners are more engaged. In connecting with other learners, students feel that they are part of a classroom community. When motivation for the content itself is lacking, the desire to socialize with other learners can keep a student coming back to the work of a remote classroom. Teachers can improve peer engagement in a virtual setting by implementing these practices:

Use prompts to spark discussion: Discussion boards can be a great space for conversations, especially when teachers use prompts that are open-ended, stir debate or force deeper learning. Prompts can also be used to generate video discussions using a social learning tool like Flipgrid or an online debate tool such as Tricider.

Student talk during synchronous learning: Lectures and focused learning can happen through recorded videos but synchronous sessions offer an opportunity to share and talk to each other as a community. Sessions hosted through Zoom or Google Meet can incorporate traditional classroom activities like jigsaws, small group activities in breakout rooms or discussion protocols.

Group assignments: Learners can create collaborative group projects through a shared Google doc or Google site. For instance, students can collaborate on the creation of an Editor's Toolbox website with grammar tips by assigning groups of students to each page within the site.

Student-led tech support: Students who are exceptionally gifted in technology might troubleshoot or a teacher can create a "Tech Help" forum that students can moderate. Teachers should take care to set up structured guidelines for classroom use.

Carving out time to share: Teachers can allow time and space for students to showcase their expertise, hobbies or projects using a Padlet or Pinterest board.

Figuring out how to effectively engage learners has always been a complex challenge for educators like the ones that we instruct. Identifying ways to motivate students, help them maintain focus and get the most out of learning was difficult when we had physical classrooms and it remains a challenge now that our learning environments are entirely virtual. A savvy educator will employ a variety of strategies to build engagement. By recognizing the critical importance of engaging learners, parents and peers, and selecting the strategies that work for them and their contexts, educators can move toward deeper engagement in online environments.

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How Can Educators Tap Into Research to Increase Engagement During Remote Learning? - EdSurge News

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As university professors and researchers who work closely with K-12 online teachers and learners, we've heard from many newly remote educators who are ...

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Tens of millions of students are dealing with massive upheaval to their educations and daily lives with their schools shuttered indefinitely to thwart the spread of the coronavirus.

Add to that fears over a pandemic that could sicken them or loved ones, students now more than ever need strong coping skills to adjust to this new reality that will likely, for many, extend through the end of the school year and beyond.

But should social-emotional learning really be a focus for educators right now as they scramble to figure out how to teach their classes remotely?

And how can educators even continue to foster students' social-emotional skills when they aren't in class together?

To answer that first question, yes, said Marc Brackett, a professor at Yale University and the director of its Center for Emotional Intelligence.

Social-emotional learning is critical to managing anxiety at this time, he said.

"Because if you don't know how to deal with the lack of control of your future, or the feelings of uncertainty that you're having, your brain is going to stay in a constant fight or flight mode," he said. "And if our brain is in fight or flight mode, then it's not in learning mode."

To answer that second question-about how to teach social-emotional skills remotely-EdWeek talked to experts to ask what SEL skills, exactly, schools should be encouraging and how teachers can do it.

Simple Things Teachers Can Do

One place to start, said Brackett, is to try a technique he calls psychological distancing.

Teachers can encourage students to stop thinking about themselves and instead ask: "'Well, what would I do to support my best friend who was telling me they were really worried about the coronavirus? What would I say to them?'" Brackett said.

"And all of the sudden, they start thinking about all of these strategies that they would use to be compassionate to someone, but that they may not use for themselves."

Students should examine what they are saying to themselves-consciously or not-inside their heads and to ask themselves, 'is their self-talk helpful?'

"It's about doing [something], as opposed to being in your head all the time about it," Brackett said.

Many educators are already trying out different tactics to teach or infuse social-emotional learning into their remote lessons, said Karen VanAusdal, the senior director of practice at the Collaborative of Academic and Social Emotional Learning, or CASEL.

"It can be simple things, such as sending daily notes, or, as some educators are doing, morning meetings with their classes where they can build community and do check-ins with young people to see how it is going," said VanAusdal. For younger students, some teachers have been reading books aloud to their students virtually and then reflecting on the social-emotional skills of the characters in the books, said VanAusdal.

For older students, VanAusdal recommends teachers ask students to examine the social-emotional attributes they're seeing in leaders right now and to ask students how those qualities are helping the country through the crisis.

Some SEL skills educators should be highlighting in others and fostering in their students, said VanAusdal, are self-awareness, self-management, social awareness, and responsible decision-making.

Showing Kids They Can Reduce Risk

Examples for when those skills are necessary abound, said Catherine Bradshaw, a developmental psychologist and professor at the University of Virginia Curry School of Education and Human Development.

"Kids may have a lower risk of contagion so they have to be mindful that while they may not get sick, they have to wash hands to reduce other people's risk," said Bradshaw.

"So that's a clear opportunity to understand how their actions and choices affect others."

It's also important to keep traditions and build supportive environments even when the class is scattered well beyond the classroom walls, said VanAusdal.

"Keeping up rituals, like a spirit week," she said. "Have students wear crazy socks and take a picture of it and send it in."

VanAusdal said she has seen several examples of principals and teachers making videos of supportive messages and sending them to their students.

Those are also ways to reach students who may be struggling to connect because they don't have a computer or internet access at home, said VanAudal.

"I think we're finding that students do have cellphone access, and there are ways they can still see video messages," she said.

Some SEL curriculum providers are offering resources that are easy for students to use on their own and don't require teacher or parent supervision, she said.

There are other exercises that students can do largely on their own.

Simple breathing exercises are beneficial.

Journaling is another. Teachers can provide students with prompts.

"It's helpful for expressing emotions, but it's also an interesting artifact to look back on when kids get older," said Bradshaw.

But, while it's important to talk to students about what's going on in the world, it's also important not to overwhelm students with too much information about the pandemic, said Bradshaw.

Teachers need to be sensitive to that, she said, and parents probably should not have cable news on in their house all day long.

And, she said, it's important for educators to recognize that these are uncharted waters, and that there's nothing that can really prepare people emotionally for dealing with a pandemic.

Kids-and adults-rely on social connections to get through difficult times. But the era of social distancing has upended all of that.

"So, we have a lot fewer tools in our tool kit to manage stress in these situations," said Bradshaw.

"That's why a lot of interpersonal skills are really going to be critical to helping kids manage this kind of stress."

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How to Teach Social-Emotional Learning When Students Aren't in School

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Experts offer tactics to teachers on how they can tend to students' SEL development in this chaotic time.

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A Trauma-informed Approach to Teaching Through Coronavirus

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Experts from the National Child Traumatic Stress Network share their recommendations for educators supporting students during the COVID-19 crisis.

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Make Adolescence Less of a Struggle with ParenTeenConnect.org

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When it comes to being a teen or raising one, couldn't we all use some support? ParenTeenConnect.org can help your family connect and communicate better.

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Part of our mission is to empower children and adults with social-emotional skills that help them realize their goals in the classroom and throughout their lives. In keeping with that, and in an effort to help educators engage with their students and reinforce the social-emotional skills they're teaching, we've created this Free Classroom Activities Page.

Here you'll find materials that have been developed for preschool through middle school classrooms by our Second Step team of experts. These activities align with the Second Step K-5 Suite-which includes Second Step SEL, the Child Protection Unit, and the Bullying Prevention Unit -and with Mind Yeti for Schools, a mindfulness program designed for elementary-aged students.*

Bookmark this page and share it with your colleagues because we'll be continually adding activities for you to use at your school.

* Mind Yeti is not accepting new users at this time.

Early Learning

Elementary

Middle School

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Free Second Step Classroom Activities | Committee for Children

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Part of our mission is to empower children and adults with social-emotional skills that help them realize their goals in the classroom and throughout their lives. In keeping with that, and in an effort to help educators engage with their students and reinforce the social-emotional skills they're teaching, we've created this Free Classroom Activities Page.

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"My Overcoming Obstacles" is our unique online platform that gives you the ability to truly make Overcoming Obstacles your own. With our easy-to-use tools, you can customize every part of an Overcoming Obstacles lesson, down to each word.

Maybe you want to change a starter activity, so it ties into something unique about your school? Or perhaps you want to take one of our decision making lessons and align it with an historical event that your students are learning? Whatever you need, "My Overcoming Obstacles" is here for you to use however and whenever you want. It's simple, intuitive, and-like all of our other resources-100% free.

Click Here To Try It Out!

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Overcoming Obstacles - Overcoming Obstacles - Free K-12 Life Skills Curriculum

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Overcoming Obstacles is a free, award-winning, and research-based curriculum for Elementary, Middle & High School Students. Learn More & Download for Free.

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We know mindfulness is good for us. Mindfulness allows us to be present in our parenting, choosing the skillful response instead of succumbing to our visceral reactions.

Mindfulness is also good for our kids. There is an emerging body of research that indicates that mindfulness can help our children improve their abilities to pay attention, to calm down when they are upset, and to make better decisions. In short, it helps with emotional regulation and cognitive focus. Do I even need to ask if you want that for your kids? 🙂

So where do we start? How can we teach mindfulness to kids?

Establish your own practice. You would have trouble teaching your children ballet if you had never danced. To authentically teach mindfulness to your children, you need to practice it yourself. You can read my guide to establishing a meditation practice here, or my popular post 40 Ways to Bring Mindfulness to Your Days here for some ideas to get started. Don't let this step intimidate you - you're probably practicing a lot of mindful habits already!

Check your expectations. A core principle of mindfulness is letting go of expectations, and this certainly applies to teaching mindfulness to kids. Are you expecting mindfulness to eliminate tantrums? to make your active child calm? to make your house quiet? If so, you are likely to be disappointed. While feeling calm or being quiet are nice side-effects of mindfulness, they are not the ultimate purpose.

The purpose of teaching mindfulness to our children is to give them skills to develop their awareness of their inner and outer experiences, to recognize their thoughts as "just thoughts," to understand how emotions manifest in their bodies, to recognize when their attention has wandered, and to provide tools for impulse control. It is not a panacea, and it will not completely get rid of what is, frankly, normal kid behavior, like tantrums and loudness and whining and exuberance and arguing...

Don't force it. If your kids aren't interested in your lesson or activity, drop it. This is a good time for you to practice non-attachment to outcomes!

Don't make mindfulness a punishment. This shouldn't be, "You hit your sister! Go sit in the mindful corner!" 'nuff said.

Now that we've got the preliminaries out of the way, here are my suggestions for how you can begin to introduce mindfulness to your children.

10 Ways to Teach Mindfulness to Kids

1. Keep it simple. With older kids, you can share the widely-used definition from Jon Kabat-Zinn in the image above. But those are a lot of big words for little kids. I prefer to use the words awareness or noticing with my children {ages 5 and 7, for reference}. Mindfulness is noticing our thoughts, what our body feels like, what our ears are hearing, and anything else that is around us and happening right now.

2. Listen to the bell. An easy way for children to practice mindfulness is to focus on paying attention to what they can hear. I've used a singing bowl, like the one on the right, for this exercise, but you could use a bell, a set of chimes, or a phone app that has sounds on it. Tell your children that you will make the sound, and they should listen carefully until they can no longer hear the sound (which is usually 30 seconds to a minute). I find that this exercise does have a calming effect on my children, and it's a fun way to teach them to pay attention to their surroundings.

3. Create a mindful bedtime ritual. Bedtime is a great time to introduce mindfulness to kids. My daughter loves to do a short body-scan meditation before bed - she closes her eyes, and I tell her to bring her attention to her toes, to her feet, to her legs, etc. It is a calming way to return to the body at the end of the day. You can find several downloadable meditation scripts (including body scans) here, and you can read about the bedtime ritual my daughter and I created here.

4. Practice with a breathing buddy. For young children, an instruction to simply "pay attention to the breath" can be hard to follow. In this Edutopia video, Daniel Goleman describes a 2nd-grade classroom that does a "breathing buddy" exercise: each student grabs a stuffed animal, and then lies down on their back with their buddy on their belly. They focus their attention on the rise and fall of the stuffed animal as they breathe in and out. {You should definitely check out the video - it's less than 2 minutes and explains the exercise and all the good stuff that it teaches kids!}

5. Make your walks mindful. One of my children's favorite things to do in the summer is a "noticing walk." We stroll through our neighborhood and notice things we haven't seen before. We'll designate one minute of the walk where we are completely silent and simply pay attention to all the sounds we can hear - frogs, woodpeckers, a lawnmower. We don't even call it "mindfulness," but that's what it is.

6. Establish a gratitude practice. I believe gratitude is a fundamental component of mindfulness, teaching our children to appreciate the abundance in their lives, as opposed to focusing on all the toys and goodies that they crave. This post describes my family's nightly gratitude practice - each night at dinner we each share one thing we are thankful for. It is one of my favorite parts of the day.

7. Try the SpiderMan meditation! My five-year-old son is in to all things superheroes, and this SpiderMan meditation is right up his alley. This meditation from Kids Relaxation teaches children to activate their "spidey-senses" and their ability to focus on all they can smell, taste, and hear in the present moment. Such a clever idea!

8. Meditate with your children. I cannot even tell you how many times my meditation sessions have been interrupted by my children. They know by now what mommy is doing when she meditates, so I will try to continue with my meditation even as they play around me. Sometimes, my daughter will sit down and join me for a few minutes. It's beautiful.

9. Check your personal weather report. In Sitting Still Like a Frog, Eline Snel encourages children to "summon the weather report that best describes [their] feelings at the moment." Sunny, rainy, stormy, calm, windy, tsunami? This activity allows children to observe their present state without overly identifying with their emotions. They can't change the weather outside, and we can't change our emotions or feelings either. All we can change is how we relate to them. As Snel describes it, children can recognize, "I am not the downpour, but I notice that it is raining; I am not a scaredy-cat, but I realize that sometimes I have this big scared feeling somewhere near my throat."

10. Practice mindful eating. The exercise of mindfully eating a raisin or a piece of chocolate is a staple of mindfulness education, and is a great activity for kids. You can find a script for a 7-minute mindful eating exercise for children here. This is a fun way to teach children to pay attention to and savor their food, and by extension, the present moment.

*****

Above all, remember to have fun and keep it simple. You can provide your children with many opportunities to add helpful practices to their toolkit - some of them will work for them and some won't. But it's fun to experiment!

Teach mindfulness to your kids - it can help them develop emotional regulation and cognitive focus. Tweet

Want more resources? You may find the following posts helpful:

Mindful Mantras for Kids {with coloring sheet downloads}

Learn to make a Mind Jar {this is the all-time most-read post on my blog!}
Teaching Mindfulness to Teens: 5 Ways to Get Buy-In 5 Strategies for Teaching Mindfulness t The Totally Obvious Thing a Mindful Mama Overlooked

o Children

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10 Ways to Teach Mindfulness to Kids - Left Brain Buddha

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We know mindfulness is good for us. Mindfulness allows us to be present in our parenting, choosing the skillful response instead of succumbing to our visceral reactions. Mindfulness is also good for our kids.

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25 Fun Mindfulness Activities for Children & Teens (+Tips!)

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Fun mindfulness activities for kids to teach them about mindfulness. Enjoy!

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CharacterStrong 30 Days of Kindness Journal

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We must demonstrate abundant hope. We will combat the spreading shadow with the fullness of our light. We may not all be doctors, but we can each use our platform to make Kindness a bit more normal and the world a bit more bright.

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11668643-0-struggle-strategies- (1)- the brain is like a muscle

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Here are nine apps to help special ed students of all ages build emotional literacy, learn self-regulation, and focus on problem solving and task planning.

Photo credit: Jayne Clare

Social and emotional learning (SEL) is the cornerstone of emotional intelligence, as these abilities do not come naturally for some special education students. Children in special ed settings need to have their confidence, courage, and emotional awareness nurtured in order to successfully play, work, cooperate, and be productive in their studies. We have all heard that technology can be a great playing-field leveler in a classroom with diverse learners. It can also assist in providing social and emotional skills. Let's face it -- the digital lifestyle is here to stay, so using digital technology to enhance SEL makes perfect sense.

However, I have yet to encounter research that focuses on the effectiveness of using apps designed solely to enhance the social and emotional health of children. Researchers and educators have only begun to closely investigate the impact of these technologies on SEL. For special ed teachers, that research can't come soon enough.

Young children acquire and utilize their initial social skills mostly in the context of play and shared activities. Through play, they form their first interpersonal interactions and develop important social skills related to empathy, cooperation, conflict resolution, and self-control, which will be used throughout life to maintain healthy relationships with others.

9 Skill-Building Apps

1. Breathe, Think, Do (Sesame Street) teaches children to keep calm and carry on by introducing three possible strategies for working through problems. It touches on familiar emotional challenges such as problem solving, self-control, planning, and time on task. Intended for very young children, this simple app gives players different scenarios in which the Blue Monster character needs to regulate his or her emotions using the breathe-think-do technique.

2. Touch and Learn -- Emotions (Innovative Mobile Apps) is chock full of wonderful photographs representing four different feelings per page. The child is prompted to match the verbal cue with the appropriate photo. This app focuses on helping kids read body language and understand emotions by looking at pictures and figuring out which person is expressing a given emotion.

3. Avokiddo Emotions provides opportunities for younger children to explore a wide range of feelings through several silly characters and a plethora of props. This app incorporates activities to help children understand the subtle cause and effect of facial expressions. The main idea is exposing young children to a variety of feelings and helping them grasp emotional connections with those feelings.

4. Emotionary (Funny Feelings) is designed to give a wide age range of kids the tools and skills to express themselves well in our world of emoticons. The app has become a popular resource for the special needs population. This collection of emotions and funny feelings now allows users to draw their own emotionary "selfie" to match how they are feeling.

5. GoNoodle is a wonderful web-based way to get younger kids out of their seats and moving. These short physical activities provide brain breaks that can help keep them focused throughout a long day. Studies have shown that physical activity increases blood flow, which increases concentration and attentiveness. This enhances students' ability to acquire and recall information. These activities make them cross the mid-line of the body, engaging both sides of the brain. GoNoodle provides teachers with fun, interactive ways to get kids moving and feeling good about themselves.

6. IF. . . The Emotional IQ Game (If You Can) promotes teamwork and collaboration, accentuating how to be in touch with our own feelings and the feelings of those around us. With this app, kids (recommended ages 9-11) learn to listen, make friends, and deal with bullying in an adventure story/game format. IF's motto: "Play Learn Grow: Succeed at school with friends in life!" This pretty much says it all.

7. The Middle School Confidential series is a powerhouse of SEL lessons by tween/teen expert Annie Fox. The book/app series for ages 8-14 is a graphic novel sequence focused on making stepping-stones out of stumbling blocks on the road to becoming a teenager. Readers follow the adventures of a group of seventh-grade friends trying to navigate the ever-changing drama of their friendships, families, and school. Excellent resource!

8. Stop, Breathe & Think (Tools for Peace) promotes mindfulness, meditation, and compassion for middle and high school students and adults. Research has shown that people can develop kindness and compassion by focusing on them through mindfulness and meditation practices. You can cultivate your frame of mind in a very short timespan with simple meditation.

9. I would be remiss if I didn't include the The Social Express in this collection of apps. Its quality content keeps students engaged and on the path to mastering healthy social and emotional skills. Research-based webisodes give kids the exposure necessary to develop meaningful relationships and become more socially competent in all realms of life. This program covers the gamut from preschool through high school with a robust SEL curriculum.

Several apps can be used in the classroom or at home to assist in reinforcing social and emotional learning while also helping kids cope with the pressures that we all face. These apps can help teachers and parents in addressing students with special needs, and many are also available in a web format.

The Puzzle of Tech Use

Most students with or without disabilities can and do benefit from SEL-focused technology in the classroom. Incorporating these tech tools should increase student incentive to learn through individualized lessons, especially when tailored to a student's specific needs. When done well, tech not only reinforces key SEL skills that children need to learn, but it can also drive student enthusiasm and promote self-assurance.

This topic may seem like an oxymoron since we want children to learn how to focus during "real time" and how to live with less tech. A wonderful TED Talk addressing this conundrum is Sherry Turkle's " Connected, but alone?"

Do you know of any digital SEL resources for special education students? Please tell us about them in the comments below.

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Here are nine apps to help special ed students of all ages build emotional literacy, learn self-regulation, and focus on problem solving and task planning. Photo credit: Jayne Clare Social and emotional learning (SEL) is the cornerstone of emotional intelligence, as these abilities do not come naturally for some special education students.

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7. Handout 1 - Beyond Trauma Informed Care

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Teaching Restorative Practices in the Classroom 7 lesson Curriculum

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10 Steps to Self Regulate - Explanation and Activity Sheet

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10 Steps to Self Regulate - Explanation and Activity Sheet

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Making students feel safe.

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Fall-Hamilton Elementary: Transitioning to Trauma-Informed Practices to Support Learning