social emotional skills
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Halloween Costume Anxiety
Many children LOVE the opportunity to wear costumes on Halloween. They jump at the opportunity to dress up like someone else and truly enjoy the process of choosing a costume. There are some children who do not share this joy and really struggle with Halloween because of their feeling about costumes. Children may not like the way that a costume feels when they wear it. If this is the case then getting creative and identifying costumes that can be created with the types of clothing that a child already enjoys wearing. Other children struggle with the idea of dressing like someone else. They may not want to be anyone or…
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Managing Halloween Fears
Sometimes it seems like we celebrate Halloween for the entire month of October. I’m definitely not complaining about that – Bring on all of the costumes, pumpkin carving, trunk or treats, and hayrides! For the youngest children though, all of these events can be overwhelming and even scary. Let’s talk about some common Halloween fears and ideas for supporting children through them. Halloween, by it’s nature is meant to be scary and children definitely pick up on that. It’s impossible to drive through a community and not see a yard display or storefront that is designed to inspire fear. For very young children, they don’t have the cultural context to…
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Understanding an Eclipse for Preschoolers
I’m on vacation – but I had to pop in and share this incredible resource before next week’s big eclipse! This social story is a simple way to explain to the very youngest students what an eclipse is, and what it might be light to experience one. Toddlers and preschoolers are so observant, they notice absolutely everything. This means that they know adults in their lives are talking about something pretty major, but they don’t necessarily understand the words that they’re using, because vocabulary words like “eclipse” and “path of totality” aren’t something that they have a frame of reference for. A social story like this one can open up…
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Activities for Martin Luther King Jr. Day
I’m re-sharing a post today that is full of amazing ideas for exploring diversity in the classroom – hopefully these will fill in your lesson plans for next week! We’re working on social studies standards, and the timing worked out particularly well because today’s standard lends itself to Martin Luther King Day. Remember, the Standards that I use every day, and am most comfortable with are Ohio’s Early Learning Development Standards – you can review them here, however I’ve found that even if your State’s standards differ, many of these activities can still be aligned similarly. I’ve rounded up some great ideas today! Domain: Social StudiesStrand: GeographyTopic: Human Systems Preschool standards are…
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Building a Positive Mindset
I consider myself a naturally positive person, but the classroom can be a hard place to keep that going. Someone is always upset with someone else, there is always a mess somewhere, and I’m constantly having to change my plans. It takes a toll! When positivity doesn’t come naturally, there are some things that help me keep that positive mindset in the classroom. First and foremost, when I recognize that I’m struggling I make a conscious effort to find something (anything) positive that I can acknowledge. Sometimes this is as small as a child nicely walking across the classroom, or offering to share with another child. I’ll spend the next…
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Finding Joy
I’ve been sharing my experience with burnout, and today I wanted to revisit a product that I created while feeling ALL of these feelings. A common suggestion for staying present and building a little more positivity is to practice finding something to be grateful for each day. If this works for adults, then it can certainly work for kids too – and it’s never too early to teach these kinds of coping skills. That’s where “Joy in Everyday: Building Positive Thinking” comes from. In practicing identifying those things each day that brought me more joy, I realized that I needed a way to keep all of these thoughts organized so…
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Love Tree
There are a ton of ways that you could create a love tree. The basic idea is to take some kind of tree branch – or you could even decorate a small Christmas tree – and hang paper hearts from the branches, similar to a thankful tree that you might do for Thanksgiving, but in this case ask parents, family members and your students to write down the things or people that they love. It’s an easy enough way to create a visual of all the things and people that are important to us. I’ve got a little twist for you. Instead of just writing down the names of things…
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Friday Freebie – Character Education Parent Letters
Happy Friday! This week I’ve reflected on my resolution to choose joy and how the idea can be used in the classroom. Today’s freebie will be super helpful as you consider other character traits and emotions that you want to explore in the classroom. My favorite thing about these Character Trait Parent Letters is that they offer simple activities that families can do to work on these traits at home. Go download your set from Counselor Chelsey and have a great weekend!
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Joy in Everyday – Standards
This week’s posts (here and here) have been all about my experience focusing on joy, and how that can be incorporated in the classroom. Here are some of the standards that are being explored when you help your students focus on joy: Social Emotional Awareness and Expression of Emotions Self-Regulation Attachment Approaches Toward Learning Planning, Action, and Reflection Attention Cognition and General Knowledge Memory Reasoning and Problem Solving Historical Thinking Language and Literacy Receptive Language and Comprehension Expressive Language Social Communication Writing For more information about the Early Learning Development standards check out this document.
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Joy in Everyday – For the Classroom
In Monday’s post I promised to share some ideas to incorporate my Joy in Everyday routine into the classroom. Well, here they are! When I started putting this together I had a couple of ideas, but as I worked I came up with a few more. I’m really excited about what I have to share with you! So check this out – you can find this entire set in my TPT store! This set includes monthly calendars, weekly calendars, and list sheets so that you and your students can track your everyday joys in whichever way works best for you. It also has a simple mini book that is designed…
