4 Fun Activities for Social-Emotional Learning in the Classroom — IDEAcon 2021
- The Deledao Team
- Aug 3, 2021
- 4 min read
Updated: Sep 29
Session: Managing Mindfulness
Speaker: Jennifer Waldvogel - NBCT, M.S. Ed, Teacher on Special Assignment, Yorkville District 115
Did you know? Using social-emotional learning activities in your classroom increases students' social-emotional well-being. Help them manage their emotions by promoting self-regulation in the classroom and beyond.
With over 35 collective years of experience as edtech analysts, former IT admins, and K12 teachers, we at the Deledao Team know exactly how these 3 tips can help you in the classroom (feat: Jennifer Waldvogel - NBCT, M.S. Ed, Teacher).
1) Movement Breaks for Practicing Mindfulness
Getting some exercise will release endorphins and pump up the energy in your class! Physical movement wakes up your students and encourages them to engage throughout the day.
Jen and other educators had some creative ideas for teaching mindfulness to elementary students.
Creative ideas for movement breaks
Stand up and stretch
"Giving students the opportunity to just stand and stretch for a minute has so many benefits for learners!"
Math aerobics
"I had a great time covering angles, lines, line segments through body movements!"
Trivia quest
"Where students answer review trivia questions in teams and the correct answer moves them around the room to the next question or challenge."
Creative dance ideas
Dance party announcements
Do a dance party every week during announcements
Headphone dance party
3-minute headphone dance party - either on Zoom or in-person classes
4-minute Chair Yoga Dance
Movement Ideas for outside the classroom
Scheduling mindfulness activities in class may not even take place in the classroom. Instead, lead your students to connect with nature and get some fresh air.
Nature Walk
Walk outside around school buildings, in hallways, across the fitness field
Scavenger Hunt
Outdoor scavenger hunts such as finding bugs that fill out the alphabet.
For remote learning, students can go outside themselves and bring back a photo or leaf to show that they went outside
2) 5-Minute Meditation for Destressing
Since these are only a few minutes in length, they are perfect for implementing during a transition in class or right before a stressful activity such as a test. Use these mindfulness meditation exercises for students in a calm, dark, and quiet environment. Turn off lights in the classroom for a few minutes.
Guided meditation Resources
General relaxation - Help students relax with this narrated meditation on YouTube
Understanding anger - Help them properly deal with feelings of anger
Overcoming body image - Help them identify body image standards, and teach self love
3) Future Pathways for Emotional Regulation
We all know that teaching students strategies to deal with emotions improves their self-control. But how do you actually prepare them to deal with conflict when it arises?
Start with future pathways: Walk through common conflict scenarios and how to resolve them. This teaches students how to recognize and understand their feelings at those moments. Once students understand their emotions, teachers can ask students to use critical thinking to figure out how to respond in various situations.
The goal is to help students realize that they cannot control outside factors but can control how they react to the external environment.
2 future pathways you should steal
We highlight the two most helpful future pathways from Waldvogel's list of 12 scenarios. Teachers can pose these questions to students to encourage them to think about responsibility and self-control.
Scenario 1
One of my friends always seems to make bad choices that I normally wouldn't make and now I get in trouble too because I am caught making poor choices. I'm tired of getting in trouble. What should I do to avoid getting in trouble?
Scenario 2
I haven't been reading much on my own time like I'm supposed to. Now my class gets to have a party for those that made their reading challenge. Reading is not interesting to me, but I do realize I need to read more to get better at it. What can I do to make this more enjoyable? How can I be more responsible in my learning? Who do I ask for help?
By presenting likely scenarios students may encounter, teachers also offer students different viewpoints on how other students may experience school. Diverse perspectives give students opportunities to practice empathy for others.
4) Mood Meter for Understanding Emotions
A popular method is to have students use mood meters to label emotions with colors and expand their vocabulary to describe a wide range of emotions
Save and share this mood meter below for your students:
Takeaway: Why Students Practice Mindfulness
As Waldvogel closes her session, she captures the goal of practicing mindfulness in the classroom - it's to get students to say, "I know where I'm going…and how to get there."
Student Wellness in the Digital Era
Not enough schools truly consider the impact of Chromebooks and digital devices on their students' mental health.
That's why we made ActivePulse™.
Its patented AI technology helps schools track their students' social-emotional well-being in real time, looking for signs of cyberbullying and self-harm behavior. Find students struggling in silence and give them the help they need.
