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Second Step
Second Step
The Second Step program for Kindergarten through Grade 5 is a universal, classroom-based program designed to increase students’ school success and decrease problem behaviors by promoting social-emotional competence and self-regulation. It teaches skills that strengthen students’ ability to learn, have empathy, manage emotions, and solve problems. The Second Step program targets key risk and protective factors linked to a range of problem behaviors. Equipping students with Second Step skills helps a school create a safer, more respectful learning environment that promotes school success for all.
We want your child to be as successful as possible at school. Success in school is not just about reading and math. It is also about knowing how to learn and how to get along with others. We will be using the Second Step program in your child’s classroom to teach these critical skills.
The Second Step program teaches skills in the following four areas:
Unit 1: Skills for Learning: Students gain skills to help themselves learn, including how to focus their attention, listen carefully, use self-talk to stay on task, and be assertive when asking for help with schoolwork.
Skills_for_Learning_Poster.pdfLesson
1. Being Respectful
Concepts
• Thinking about how others want to be treated and treating them that way helps you be respectful.
• Being respectful helps you be a better learner.
Objectives—Students will be able to:
• Identify respectful behavior in themselves and others
• Determine respectful responses to scenarios
2. Focusing Attention and Listening
• Focusing your attention and listening help you be a better learner.
• Focusing your attention and listening are ways to show respect.
• Identify examples of focusing attention
• Identify examples of listening
• Apply focusing-attention and listening skills in the context of a game and in response to scenarios
3. Using Self-Talk
• Self-talk means talking to yourself in a quiet voice or in your head.
• Self-talk helps you focus, stay on task, and handle distractions.
• Identify classroom distractions
• Demonstrate using self-talk in response to scenarios
4. Being Assertive
• Being assertive means asking for what you want or need in a calm and firm voice.
• Being assertive is a respectful way to get what you want or need.
• Demonstrate assertive communication skills in response to scenarios
• Determine which adult to ask assertively for help in response to scenarios
Unit 2: Empathy: Students learn to identify and understand their own and others’ feelings. Students also learn how to take another’s perspective and how to show compassion.
Empathy_Poster.pdfLesson
5. Identifying Feelings
Content
• Clues in faces, bodies, and situations help you notice and understand how people are feeling.
• Everyone feels a wide variety of emotions.
• Some feelings are comfortable, and others are uncomfortable.
Objectives—Students will be able to:
• Name a variety of feelings
• Distinguish between comfortable and uncomfortable feelings
• Use physical, verbal, and situational clues to determine what others are feeling
6. Learning More About Feelings
• People can have different feelings about the same situation.
• People’s feelings can change.
• Empathy is feeling or understanding what someone else is feeling.
• Use physical, verbal, and situational clues to determine what others are feeling
• Label their own feelings as the same
7. Feeling Confident
• Practicing helps you build your confidence.
• Feeling confident helps you do your best and makes you proud.
• Noticing how others feel and understanding that their feelings can change helps you have empathy.
• Identify physical and situational clues that indicate the feeling of confidence
• Detect when their own and others’ feelings change
8. Respecting Different Preferences
• Having empathy helps you notice when others have different preferences from yours.
• Respecting others’ preferences helps you get along better with them.
• Determine what others are feeling using physical, verbal, and situational clues
• Label their own preferences as the same as or different from others’ preferences
9. Showing Compassion
• Noticing and understanding what someone is feeling helps you have empathy.
• When you have empathy for someone, you can show your care and concern by saying something kind or doing something to help.
• Showing care and concern is called showing compassion.
• Determine what others are feeling using physical, verbal, and situational clues
• Identify ways to show compassion for others in response to scenarios
10. Predicting Feelings
• Accidents happen.
• If something happens to you by accident, think about how it could have been an accident and find out more information.
• If you do something by accident, think about how the other person feels, apologize, and offer to help.
• Predict others’ feelings in response to scenarios
• Offer possible reasons for others’ actions and feelings in response to scenarios
Unit 3: Emotion Management: Students learn specific skills for calming down when experiencing strong feelings, such as anxiety or anger.
Calm_Down_Poster.pdfLesson
11. Introducing Emotion Management
Content
• When you feel strong feelings, it’s hard to think clearly.
• Focusing attention on your body gives you clues about how you’re feeling.
• Thinking about your feelings helps the thinking part of your brain get back in control.
Objectives—Students will be able to:
• Identify physical clues that can help them name their own feelings
12. Managing Embarrassment
• Using a stop signal and naming your feeling are the first two Calming-Down Steps.
• Identify the first two Calming-Down Steps
• Demonstrate first two Calming-Down Steps in response to scenarios
13. Handling Making Mistakes
• Everyone makes mistakes, but if you’re feeling strong feelings, it’s important to calm down.
• Making mistakes helps you learn, because mistakes show you what you need to practice more.
• You can use belly breathing to calm down.
• Demonstrate correct belly-breathing technique
• Use belly breathing to calm down in response to scenarios
14. Managing Anxious Feelings
• Negative self-talk can make strong feelings even stronger.
• When you feel really worried and anxious about something, calming down helps.
• Using positive self-talk can help you calm down.
• Generate positive self-talk they can use to calm down in response to scenarios
• Use positive self-talk to calm down in response to scenarios
15. Managing Anger
• Everyone feels angry sometimes, but hurting other people’s feelings or bodies is not okay.
• It’s important to calm down angry feelings so you don’t do something hurtful.
• Being assertive is a respectful way to get what you want or need.
• Use counting to calm down in response to scenarios
• Use assertive communication skills to get what they want or need in response to scenarios
16. Finishing Tasks
• Calming down helps you stay focused and on task at school.
• Using positive self-talk helps you stay focused and on task so you can be a better learner.
• Identify situations that require the use of the Calming-Down Steps
• Demonstrate using the Calming-Down Steps in response to scenarios
• Use positive self-talk to stay focused and on task in response to scenarios
Unit 4: Problem Solving: Students learn a process for solving problems with others in a positive way.
Problem-Solving_Poster.pdfLesson
17. Solving Problems, Part 1
Concepts
• Calming down helps you think so you can solve problems.
• Following steps can help you solve problems.
• Saying the problem without blame is respectful.
Objectives—Students will be able to:
• Recall the first Problem-Solving Step
• Identify and say a problem in response to scenarios
18. Solving Problems, Part 2
• Following steps can help you solve problems.
• Solutions to problems must be safe and respectful.
• Recall the first two Problem-Solving Steps
• Generate several solutions for a given problem in response to scenarios
• Determine if solutions are safe and respectful
19. Taking Responsibility
• Following steps can help you solve problems.
• When you hurt someone’s feelings, it’s important to take responsibility.
• Taking responsibility means admitting what you did, apologizing, and offering to make amends.
• Recall the Problem-Solving Steps
• Apply the Problem-Solving Steps to scenarios about conflicts with friends
• Demonstrate accepting responsibility for their actions by admitting, apologizing, and offering to make amends in response to scenarios
20. Responding to Playground Exclusion
• Following steps can help you solve problems.
• Being left out is a problem.
• Inviting someone who is being left out to play is the respectful, compassionate thing to do.
• Recall the Problem-Solving Steps
• Apply the Problem-Solving Steps to scenarios that involve playground problems, such as students being left out intentionally
21. Playing Fairly on the Playground
• Calming down helps you think so you can solve problems.
• Following steps can help you solve problems.
• When you can’t agree on rules for a game, it’s a problem.
• Finding a respectful way to agree on rules helps you get along better with others.
• Recall the Problem-Solving Steps
• Apply the Problem-Solving Steps to scenarios that involve playground conflicts that arise during games
22. Reviewing Second Step Skills
• Using Second Step skills can help you be a better learner and get along with others.
• Recall Second Step skills learned
• Identify Second Step skills in a story
• Relate personal examples of skill use
Your child will be learning a lot this year—and they will need your help! Throughout the year, your child will be bringing home Home Links that go with several of the Second Step lessons. Home Links are simple, fun activities for you and your child to complete together. They are a great way for you to understand what your child is learning and for your child to show you what he or she knows.
Codes are grade specific so please make sure you use the correct one for your child(ren). The site to join is www.secondstep.org and activation key is listed below.
Kindergarten – SSPK FAMI LY70
1st Grade – SSP1 FAMI LY71
2nd Grade – SSP2 FAMI LY72
3rd Grade – SSP3 FAMI LY73
4th Grade – SSP4 FAMI LY74
5th Grade – SSP5 FAMI LY75
If you have any questions about the Second Step program, please do not hesitate to contact your child’s teacher for more information. Thank you for supporting your child in learning the skills that lead to success in school and in life.
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