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It is a known fact that children need to learn Social-Emotional Learning (SEL) skills to succeed both in the classroom as well as in the real world. Unfortunately, time proves to be the biggest enemy when it comes to including these necessary lessons in everyday classroom lessons. Here we have shared a few tips to help a teacher to school counselor seamlessly integrate Social-Emotional Learning into the classroom.

• Morning Madness Check-ins

Teaching self-reflection at the beginning of the day lets students unwind from the morning rush and learn to control the anxiety of a busy morning. Morning check-ins can include greeting a person warmly, a moment of gratitude or other personal connections among students. It is also a quick and easy way to incorporate social-emotional learning into their daily routine.

• Gratitude Journal

Give time to your students for daily gratitude journals. Doing this at the start of the day, allows for a moment of reflection, that your students will enjoy when given the right surrounding. Short prompts like “today will be great because . . .” can help develop emotional tools that students will use throughout in school as well as at home.

• Group work for SEL in classroom

Group or teamwork in the classroom is an excellent opportunity to incorporate SEL into the work that your students already do. Teamwork is an important life skill that will help students be successful in their careers when they grow up as well as in their personal lives too. Therefore, with teamwork, you can teach your students to solve problems, encourage creativity, compromise, help foster a sense of belonging and identity, and develop leadership skills - all by adding SEL in your syllabus.

• Reward social skills & SEL practice

Look for opportunities to recognize students who are doing well; extending assistance to help them overcome obstacles and encouraging them when they do so, on their own, will enable them to recognize their own social skills encouraging them to use them more often.

• Check-out & warm Goodbyes

At the end of day, as part of student counselling techniques, take a moment together and reflect on the day and reinforce your students’ social-emotional skills. Each student can announce a positive trait for the day and/or compliment others on their same and set some goals for the next day. By encouraging introspection and proclaiming goals loudly before others, the students harness mindfulness and accountability in them.