Social & Emotional Activities For Elementary School Kids

 

A child’s early years determine how expressive or unexpressive he will become as he grows up. Children’s personalities are shaped by their parents, friends, schoolmates, mentors, and teachers at a young age. Teachers play an active role in the SEL (Social & Emotional Learning) growth of elementary students, while parents and friends have a relatively passive role.

Teachers are constantly searching for ways to shape elementary kids socially and emotionally. You will love this written piece if you are a teacher. Listed below are the top five activities for elementary school kids to learn social and emotional skills.

1. Everyday Greetings for Social & Emotional Activities For Elementary School Kids

Little things make a big difference when it comes to school kids. Elementary school kids are often not familiar with daily morning greetings. If you teach them, everyday greetings might help them learn social and emotional skills. Students might enjoy the idea of customary greetings and develop self-awareness and relationships, two SEL skills that are super important.

Give students a list or chart with the following greeting options whenever they enter the classroom, physically or virtually:

• The wave

• High Five

• Shake hands

• Jazz hands

• Foot tap

• Thumbs up

• Fist bump

• Elbow bump

2. Artistic Expressions

Artistic expression is an excellent way of allowing elementary kids to express themselves in front of you! While art activities empower kids to process their emotions positively, they can easily infuse into your daily school regimen. You can ask your students to draw or paint what they feel; this way, you can make them self-aware about their thoughts.

Aside from art supplies, music also plays a significant role in SEL art activities. Ask your students to respond honestly to a piece of music or poetry. As a result, your students will relieve stress, express emotions openly, and communicate healthily. After an art activity, you can ask students the following questions:

• How did you feel?
• How did the music make you feel? Did it make you happy or sad?
• What colors did the music remind you of?

3. Read Aloud Stories

You can build long-lasting memories for your children by reading aloud to them. Using this method, students develop a social mindset effortlessly. If you want to engage your kids in read-aloud activities, you must first identify a social-emotional concept. After that, pre-read the story, mark the places you want to discuss with the kids, and finally read it aloud.

As well as being an effective SEL tool, read-alouds can also serve as a solid foundation for other social or emotional activities. You can use read-aloud to create crafts, anchor charts, and journals. If your students need to reread the book after the activity, leave it in a location where they can easily access it.

5. Random Kindness Acts

Random acts of kindness help elementary school children develop empathy towards society along with relationship skills and social awareness. Kindness acts are a great way to infuse SEL into elementary children. You will also gradually create a positive, caring, and healthy school culture if you encourage your kids to practice kindness acts. Students will also be able to build empathy bonds outside of the classroom by doing this.

 

You can make your kids implement these random acts of kindness during school/classroom time:

• Talk to a lonely classmate
• Thank the school janitor anonymously
• Hold the door open for the person behind you as a gesture of courtesy
• You can lend a favorite book or movie to a friend at school
• Old towels, sweaters, hoodies, and blankets can be donated to a local shelter for people and animals
• Help low-performing classmates with their homework

6. Make time for art

There are SO many reasons why kids should paint. The majority of people find peace and relaxation in art. Through this activity, their minds are focused and they gain a much more engaged view of the world.

7. Read

Children’s books feature many interesting main characters and story lines that teach social-emotional skills. When young children read about characters they can relate to, in situations they can relate to, they learn valuable lessons.  Below are two book lists to get you started: Picture Books To Teach Students About Kindness and Children’s Books For Teaching Social Skills.