The research is very clear – social emotional learning absolutely helps students. Studies have shown that social emotional learning activities can…

• Improve academic performance
• Reduce problematic classroom behaviors
• Help students manage stress

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But how can we possibly fit more into our jam-packed schedules? And how can teachers find the time to research and prep these important social emotional learning lessons? I've got you covered.

Read on for the social emotional learning topics your students need most, and fun SEL activities you can easily squeeze into your week!

Click to jump to…

• Social Emotional Learning Topics Your Students Need
• Social Emotional Learning Activities For The Classroom
  • Growth Mindset
  • Social Skills
  • Friendship Skills
  • Mindfulness
  • Celebrating Diversity
  • Self Love
  • Gratitude
• Social Emotional Learning Lessons

Social Emotional Learning Topics Your Students Need

Social emotional learning for the classroom sounds great and all, but how can we teachers actually put it into action? There are SO many SEL topics out there, so I've done the work for you and selected the ones that students will most benefit from in a classroom setting.

While there are many other topics that would still be valuable, these social emotional learning lessons focus on skills that will help students thrive at school. These are the ideas that will help students improve academically, manage their behaviors, interact positively with faculty and peers, and build their self esteem as learners.

Here are 7 essential topics for social emotional learning activities that we can teach and reinforce with students. (Click each topic heading to jump to activities for that topic!)

1. Growth Mindset: Growth mindset is so important for learning, as it helps students tackle challenges and build the belief that they can learn new things. Social emotional learning activities with growth mindset in mind are a must-have for the classroom.
2. Social Skills: Social skills help students self-regulate in the classroom and interact with their peers in a positive way. Focusing on social skills saves us valuable time in the long run, since it helps students build more independence and need less help from teachers when problems come up.
3. Friendship Skills: Conflict resolution, making new friends, being inclusive, and practicing kindness are all important friendship skills that students need to feel happy and safe at school.
4. Mindfulness: Studies have shown that mindfulness can reduce stress and increase happiness with all people, and that includes kids too! Mindfulness practices are also a great way to help your students find calm after an exciting task.
5. Celebrating Diversity: Our classrooms are full of students who come from all different backgrounds. They bring a variety of life experiences to school with them, and it's so important we honor those differences, and also teach students to appreciate those differences in each other.
6. Self-Love: Student self esteem can be a huge roadblock in learning and cooperating. We can help students practice self-love and positive mental health skills.
7. Gratitude: Practicing gratitude actually makes us happier! And gratitude can make our classroom more positive spaces.

Social Emotional Learning Activities For The Classroom

I'm sharing some of my all-time favorite social emotional learning activities for the classroom. The ideal situation would be to have one day a week with a time block set aside for SEL lessons. However, I know this can be hard to swing for some teachers.

Fear not – these activities can be squeezed into your morning meeting, a transition between lessons, or even an add on to a read aloud. You don't have to get fancy!

If you start to get overwhelmed at the thought of researching, planning, and prepping social emotional learning lessons, just remember – there are lots of great resources out there already! (And that's why I created this year long Social Emotional Learning Curriculum – that you don't have to waste your time reinventing the wheel.)

Growth Mindset Activities

Growth mindset is a great place to start with your social emotional learning activities. Here are a couple of my absolute favorite activities to get you started!

Fixed Vs. Growth Mindset

Teaching students to understand the differences between a fixed versus growth mindset is the beginning of building a strong growth mindset. This social emotional learning activity is a must-have for teachers who want to help their students build persistence.

This anchor chart is a great visual for students as they are learning about fixed mindset and growth mindset.

Positive Self Talk

Learning to speak kindly to ourselves is a huge SEL topic. Luckily, there are many amazing social emotional learning activities centered on this very concept. Help your students understand the importance of speaking kindly to our minds by giving concrete examples, modeling frequently, and doing fun social emotional learning activities like this cute fortune teller to help students put it into practice!

(Looking for more growth mindset activities? Check out this Growth Mindset Lessons and Activities resource.)

Social Skills Activities

Social skills are so important to academic success, yet teachers rarely get the time or support they need to be able to teach them. Here are some engaging social skill activities that you can do with your class anytime to start their learning:

Self-Regulation

A student's ability to self regulate will contribute a lot to their ability to succeed in the classroom. This group activity is a great way to give students concrete examples of ways they can recenter themselves when big emotions take over.

Setting Boundaries

Learning how to set boundaries can help students feel safe and empowered when difficult situations arise. Here are two social emotional learning activities that can help students understand their “magical powers” of boundary setting.

(Looking for more social skills activities? Check out this Social Skills Lessons and Activities resource.)

Friendship Skills Activities

As teachers, we end up spending a lot of our time putting out fires between students and navigating friendship conflicts. Some of the most important social emotional learning activities we can do are lessons that help our students build independence with friendship skills.

Making New Friends

Many students need support with making new friends. This flipbook helps students with concrete strategies they can practice and put in action to make new friends.

Navigating Friendship Conflicts

Even the best of friends have arguments and disagreements. Students can learn the best ways to handle these conflicts with modeling, read alouds, and social stories. These social stories are a great social emotional learning activity for helping your students build their friendship skills.

(Looking for more friendship activities? Check out this Friendship Lessons and Activities resource.)

Mindfulness Activities

As more research is done, the benefits of mindfulness continue to be uncovered – not just for adults, but for kids too! Practicing mindfulness helps us be present, eliminate stress, and navigate big feelings – all things that students can use practice with. Here are a few of my favorite social emotional learning activities for teaching mindfulness to kids.

Breathing Exercises

Breath plays a very important part in regulating our emotions. These fun breathing exercises help students become aware of their breathing and give some tools to try when they need to self-regulate.

Yoga

Get your students moving with these simple yoga moves. Movement is a great tool for helping students reset their bodies and their minds. You could post this in your calm corner, or use it for brain breaks during your school day.

(Looking for more mindfulness activities? Check out this Mindfulness Lessons and Activities resource.)

Celebrating Diversity

Learning to accept others and embrace differences is a skill that we should be teaching children as early as possible. These social emotional learning activities are aimed at helping students celebrate their uniqueness, understand differences between themselves and others, and honor the diversity in their classroom and school.

Celebrating Differences

This anchor chart display is a wonderful visual to help students understand that differences are beautiful.

Different But The Same

This activity helps normalize differences by having students identify things that are unique and things that are the same about their tablemates and themselves.

(Looking for more diversity activities? Check out this Celebrating Diversity Lessons and Activities resource.)

Self-Love

More than ever, students need support with positive mental health and self love. This is an important piece of social emotional learning that should be done at school.

Here are a few ideas for social emotional learning activities for kids to practice self love:

Affirmation Station

This mini affirmation station is a fun craft to help students practice positive messages for themselves.

Taking Care Of Me

An important social emotional learning activity for students to help them reflect on ways they can take care of themselves and their mental health when things get tough.

(Looking for more self-love activities? Check out this Self Love Lessons and Activities resource.)

Gratitude

Practicing gratitude has many benefits, and it can help students social emotional well-being at school. There are lots of gratitude activities you can do with students – here are a couple to get you started!

Gratitude Journal

This simple gratitude journal for students is an easy way to incorporate gratitude into your school day.

Grateful To Be Me

Help students reflect on the things they can be grateful for in this fun social emotional learning craft.

(Looking for more gratitude activities? Check out this Gratitude Lessons and Activities resource.)

Social Emotional Learning Activities For Students

I hope these ideas about social emotional learning and social skills have given you some inspiration to try out some SEL activities with your students. Remember, these are lifelong skills, so your students aren't going to master them in one lesson. It will take many discussions, real-life experiences, and loving examples for students to build up these skills.

If you feel inspired to dive in and make social emotional learning a regular part of your classroom, then you're ready for the Social Emotional Learning Curriculum. It has 7 units and a whole school year's worth of lessons. They're research-based and easy to implement so you can do this important SEL work without adding more prep and planning to your plate.

Which social emotional learning activities are you going to try out? Let me know in the comments!
xoxo
Laura

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The post Essential Social Emotional Learning Activities To Help Your Students Thrive appeared first on Love Grows Learning.

Read on for the ultimate guide to paper Thanksgiving crafts for kids that are fun to make but easy to prep! (This post may contain affiliate links. I make a small amount of comimssion when you shop through these links.)

Click here to check out the Gratitude and Thanksgiving activity bundle!

Thanksgiving Projects for Elementary Students

Thanksgiving is a special time in school because it provides an opportunity to express gratitude and honor the earth. These paper Thanksgiving crafts for kids can help students practice gratitude in ways that are engaging and fun. 

This is an especially important time to talk about Native American culture and to honor it in a respectful way in your classroom. There are lots of Thanksgiving projects for elementary students that can help students understand and respect Native American culture. Here are some of the very best paper Thanksgiving crafts for kids of all ages!

Printable Thanksgiving Crafts for Kids

If you are looking for Thanksgiving crafts for kids easy on the prep and low on materials, then printables are the way to go. There are lots of printable options out there that can still be rich and engaging. Here are some of my very favorite Thanksgiving crafts for kids at school that are no-prep printables:

Gratitude Crown

This leaf crown is another fun craft project. Students write down people or things that they are grateful for on the leaves and then glue it to their crown.

Thanksgiving Traditions Turkey

This printable turkey craft is one of my favorite printable Thanksgiving crafts for kids. Students write different things they love to do for Thanksgiving on the feathers of the turkey.

Coloring Sheets

This collaborative coloring poster is such a fun choice for Thanksgiving time! Each student gets a square to color. Then the class uses teamwork to put the pictures together to create a complete display. It requires no prep, just lots of fun. This resource comes with ten gratitude and Thanksgiving themed designs to choose from.

Native American Designs

Making a Native American-inspired drawing. First, help your students research tribes that live or used to live in your area. Then find out what kind of symbols they used in their designs and artwork. Students can use these symbols to decorate their own artwork.

Coloring Placemats

This placemat coloring is a fun chance for students to share with the class some of the foods that their families like to make for Thanksgiving. It also provides a chance to talk about decolonizing Thanksgiving by talking about some traditional Native American foods to your students. This article includes many wonderful dishes that come from Native American culture. You can even share these recipes with students and their families.

Grateful For The Earth

Reading books like Wild Berries by Julie Flett can help inspire students to appreciate the beauty of nature. This craft inspires students to name all the ways Earth provides for them. Another beautiful book to read with this craft is We Are Water Protectors by Carole Lindstrom. You can get the template to this craft in my TPT store right here.

Gratitude Anchor Charts

Anchor charts are a great paper activity to use in the classroom. These anchor charts are all about celebrating gratitude, and they are perfect for November and Thanksgiving time. These anchor charts have an element that the students cut out and write on their own, making them great paper Thanksgiving crafts for kids.

This is a fun anchor chart to help students brainstorm and reflect on things that they are grateful for in their lives. Pass out a paper leaf to each student, have them write their idea on the leaf, cut it out, and paste it on the anchor chart!

This anchor chart is a fun way to have students share their favorite Thanksgiving traditions. Each student gets a feather, writes down one of their favorite ways to celebrate, and then adds their feather to the turkey on the anchor chart.

Thanksgiving Crafts Construction Paper

There are lots of fun Thanksgiving crafts construction paper can be used for. Many photocopy machines can run construction paper, making it easy to use colored construction paper as part of any craft. Here are some of my favorite Thanksgiving crafts construction paper is used with.

Gratitude Chain

This gratitude chain is one of my favorite paper Thanksgiving crafts for kids that can be done as a whole-class activity. Have your students think about all the things they are grateful for in their classroom or school. This might be teachers and friends, certain classes or resources, or features of their school buildings. This activity can help students realize the great privilege of having access to education.

Pastel or Chalk Drawings

You can use construction paper with pastels or chalk to get a striking look for this craft. Celebrate Native American legends using books like The Girl Who Loved Wild Horses by Paul Goble and Tasunka, A Lakota Horse Legend by Donald F. Montileaux.

Construction Paper Weaving

This is a great example of Thanksgiving crafts construction paper could be used for. This festive fall weaving project can be printed out and copied on colored construction paper. Cut out construction paper strips for students to use for the weaving.

Paper Thanksgiving Crafts For Kids

I hope these craft ideas have inspired you with lots of ideas! These Thanksgiving crafts for kids will help your students learn about respecting and honoring Native American culture, as well as celebrating gratitude for the big and small gifts in our lives.

Which activity are you excited to try with your students for Thanksgiving?
xoxo
Laura

Want some Thanksgiving activities that are ready to print and go? Check out the bundle here!

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The post 11 Paper Thanksgiving Crafts For Kids That Are Fun and Easy appeared first on Love Grows Learning.