Our students have been through so much the past few years. Many have lost family members due to Covid. They have not had a "normal" school year (although this year has been pretty close). But the goalposts for the standards they are supposed to maintain remain the same. They have had to work so hard to catch up from the lost learning.
March 11th was International SEL Day. Our district decided to celebrate this day and I decided to devote the whole day to SEL skills. It was the day before Spring Break, we just finished district testing--it seemed like a great time.
We read the stories:
A great story about a little girl living with her father in a refugee camp. Her best friend is a pebble.
What can we do to make a friend feel better? Some animals suggested getting mad or getting revenge but the Rabbit listens.
I discovered this amazing site-authors reading their own books:
We did the toothpaste experiment-you can't put toothpaste back into the tube. Same with our words. Once we say something mean we can't take it back.
We also did the Wrinkled Heart activity where we pass a paper heart around the circle and each student says something mean to it and hurts it. Then we tape it back to together and say nice things to it. We extended it to allow the students to create their own hearts and write nice words on it.
Overall, I think it was a really effective day. The students learned a lot and we worked toward invigorating our classroom community.
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