As defined by CASEL, updated 2020:
"Social and emotional learning (SEL) is an integral part of education and human development. SEL is the process through which all young people and adults acquire and apply the knowledge, skills, and attitudes to develop healthy identities, manage emotions and achieve personal and collective goals, feel and show empathy for others, establish and maintain supportive relationships, and make responsible and caring decisions.
SEL advances educational equity and excellence through authentic school-family-community partnerships to establish learning environments and experiences that feature trusting and collaborative relationships, rigorous and meaningful curriculum and instruction, and ongoing evaluation. SEL can help address various forms of inequity and empower young people and adults to co-create thriving schools and contribute to safe, healthy, and just communities."
Here in Beechwood School, SEL is the entire culture and climate of the school, beginning with greeting each student every morning. Social and emotional learning is shown throughout each and every day both in and out of the classroom. Students' days often begin with a morning meeting, a time for students' voices to be heard. We also have monthly Cesel (Character Education Social Emotional Learning) Lessons once a month taught by classroom teachers, in addition to Cesel Lessons, I teach monthly character education lessons in each classroom. During my lessons I like to read a fun book, practice an activity, and hand out a Character Education Award to 2-3 students who have been working extra hard! Beechwood also has Beary Good Bear Awards, students can earn a Beary Good Bear certificate each time they are caught in a good and kind act.
These are also known as Classroom Guidance Lessons. These are lessons that I personally teach once a month in each K-2 classroom. I arrange a schedule with teachers that allows me to teach a 40 minute lesson on various topics. During this lesson, we typically read a story, hold a discussion with students, and work on a fun activity together. Each lesson is wrapped up with presenting Character Education Awards to students showing great character and trying their best that month. I love my time in the classroom with students; I get to know all of my students in the classroom, at lunch, and at recess!
Check out some lessons below!
March's Character Education Lesson:
Self-Control! Sometimes it can be difficult to keep a thought inside our heads, especially when it is something super important! This month we are learning about self-control and knowing when we should be patient and wait to share a thought, and when we should interrupt to report an emergency. My Mouth is Volcano, by Julia Cook is an excellent book to open up the conversation about self-control. We learn about a boy who just had so much to share, but often interrupted others with his very important words. One day this boy learned what it felt like when someone else interrupted him! Students will follow up by writing or drawing examples of emergencies to report immediately erupting out of the volcano versus examples of things that can wait inside the volcano. Keep the conversation going at home; encourage your child to have a voice as well as talk about the importance of being patient!
February’s Character Education Theme: Self-Care
Usually for Valentine’s Day we focus on how we can show our love and care for others, this month Beechwood focused on how we can show love and care for ourselves! We read The Good Egg, by Jory John and Pete Oswald. While reading this story we learned that we cannot control everything in the world around us and sometimes we will get stressed out! What we can control is how we take care of ourselves; we can eat well, get enough sleep, and take a break or walk away from something that is making us mad or stressed. Once we have taken care of ourselves, we can return to the issue and handle the situation a little better. Students decorated hearts with ways they show self-care by writing or drawing what makes them feel happy or relaxed. Let’s keep practicing self-care!
Check out the Mountainside Guidance Twitter page at the end of the month for our final school-wide project!
January’s Character Education Theme: Personal Space!
We kicked off our new year by talking about a skill that can be used everywhere and for many years! Personal Space! We talked about how everyone has their own personal space bubble, some may be big and some may be small but no matter what we have to respect others’ bubble! We read Personal Space Camp, by Julia Cook; students were able to practice many examples of showing good personal space. We used a hula hoop to show what someone’s personal space bubble might look like, we practiced what it means to be an arms length away from someone when talking or walking in a line, and we gave examples of how we can express to others that we might need some more personal space.
December’s Character Education Theme: Sportsmanship!
Our last lesson of 2019 was all about sportsmanship! We talked about what it means to show good and bad sportsmanship both on and off the field. Our kindergarten classes heard the story I Will Try, by Marilyn Janovitz. We learned how we should always try our best and never give up. We also saw characters in the book show kindness by helping others learn. Our first and second graders heard The Day My Dad Joined My Soccer Team by, Maureen Fergus. This was a funny and light-hearted story that talked about a Dad who was so excited to be on his son’s soccer team but needed some extra reminders about what it means to show good sportsmanship. Students did a great job identifying ways to show good and bad sportsmanship. We ended our lesson by decorating handprints with ways to show good sportsmanship. Check out our hallway mural with everyone’s handprint at the end of the month!
November’s Character Education Theme: Feelings!
This month our Beechwood Bears are learning all about feelings. I am reading Today I Feel Silly & Other Moods That Make My Day, by Jamie Lee Curtis with grades K-2. We are starting our lesson by reviewing the Listening Position. Listening Position is how we show that we are ready to be good listeners with our body and eyes facing the speaker or source of sound. We continued our lesson by opening up a conversation about different feelings and how we can identify those feelings. While reading our story, students did a fantastic job discussing various feelings throughout the book! We followed up on this story by decorating a person outline with a feeling of their choice and decorated in and around the outline with things that make them feel that way. For example, if a student drew a happy face they would draw or write what makes them feel happy. I loved seeing all of the detailed faces and explanations. I encourage you to keep the conversations about feelings going at home!
October’s Character Education Theme: Respect!
How do we show respect to ourselves, to others, and to the environment? This month we talked all about these answers! It was so lovely going into kindergarten classrooms to get to know all of our new Beechwood Bears. In kindergarten we talked about what it means to show respect and we read Sneetches, By Dr. Seuss. The students had such thoughtful answers; I encourage you to speak with your children even more about respect at home! In grades 1 and 2 we had some wonderful conversations about respect and we read One, By Kathryn Otoshi. I was blown away by how well our 1st and 2nd graders described respect and how we show respect to ourselves, to one another, and to the environment. To end our lesson this month every student decorated a speech bubble with ways we show respect; students wrote and drew great depictions of respect! This is definitely a conversation we should keep going both at home and at school! Check out our giant Beechwood speech bubble on our Guidance Twitter page.