To succeed in both academics and life, it’s crucial for students to learn social-emotional skills. Social-emotional skills are imperative in this era. To Build a safe and peaceful society, it is very important for students, as well as adults, to understand good and bad social-emotional behaviour. In this blog, we will understand what social-emotional learning is, its importance, and activities for building good social-emotional behaviour.
Social-Emotional Learning
Social-emotional learning is the set of skills and knowledge learnt by people, to build relationships with their peers, parents, teachers, and other human beings. It is the way they control their emotions while interacting with others in favourable as well as unfavourable environments. There is a wide range of social-emotional learning activities that can be carried out at an early age to build all the required coping mechanisms for students and adults to manage their emotions socially. Not everyone has a favourable environment while growing up, hence including social-emotional learning activities in early schooling years is a step towards building a better and more peaceful society.
Importance of Social-Emotional Learning
Emotion Management: Social-emotional learning focuses on managing our emotions in both good and bad situations. It teaches the importance of good emotional behaviour and how it can impact not only ourselves but also the behaviour of those around us. There are various social-emotional learning activities for students that can be carried out in their early years, which can shape their emotions for life.
Social Awareness: Social-emotional learning focuses on making students aware of their own emotions. It teaches them how to control their emotions through various activities and also teaches the impact of their emotions on people around them.
Relationship Building: It is very important for students to learn social-emotional behaviour from an early age. With social-emotional learning, they understand how to build and manage good relationships with their peers and parents. It not only helps them in their educational career but also in life ahead.
Crime Control: To build a better society, it’s crucial to control crime and violence. Most of the violence that happens around us is emotionally triggered. When people don’t know how to control their emotions and support others, unfavourable situations can often turn into violent crime. Hence, introducing social-emotional learning in the early years can help students understand the impact of their emotions and the emotions of others on world peace.
Top 12 Social-Emotional Learning Activities.
There is a wide range of social-emotional learning activities for students that can be part of their daily educational setting and can help them build good social-emotional behaviour. Often, teachers and parents have questions about the kinds of social-emotional learning activities they can practice with students. Hence, we are listing a few of the top activities that can be practiced at home as well as in the class.
Positive Affirmations: Parents and teachers can help students note down some positive affirmations that they can read and practice. Positive self-talk helps students feel confident and good about themselves and helps build good habits.
Art and Craft: One of the best activities for social-emotional learning is art and craft. Art seems to have a very positive impact on the mind. Art allows students to self-express and focus on self-awareness. Art, like painting or colouring can have soothing and calming effects on the mind and body.
Mindfulness: Mindfulness activities like meditation, breathing techniques, and yoga can help students calm their emotions. Social awareness activities like these can help them control their emotions in the worst scenarios. Activities like these can make students aware of their senses, which can help them handle any situation with a calm and composed mind.
Emotional Check-ins: This is an extremely easy activity that can be practiced by both parents and teachers. Use a daily emotional checker chart to see how the students are feeling for the day. As per research, just expressing or talking about our feelings with someone can help us cope better. Hence, this is one of the very important activities for social-emotional learning.
Book and Movie Club: A book club or movie club is known as one of the best social emotional learning activities. Here, students are encouraged to read a book or watch a movie and asked to discuss it in the group. They get to talk about various scenarios from the book and movie and also understand how others perceive them differently. Social awareness activities like this help students manage their emotions well.
Team-Building Activities: There are various team-building activities that teachers can introduce to help with social emotional learning. Students can be divided into groups and asked to play different competitive games like building posters, etc. Activities like this help them communicate socially and also help them cope with their emotions like joy and sadness.
Group Discussions: Group discussions are a great way of making students socially active. Group discussions encourage students to speak in front of large groups, which is a really good way of making them socially active and helping them learn how to manage relationships.
Daily Morning Greeting and Meeting: Daily morning greetings and meetings can help build positive relationships with peers and students. It is one of the best and easiest practices that can be carried out as part of social emotional learning.
Daily Diary: Maintaining a daily journal is a very good way of managing our daily emotions. Maintaining a daily journal is like giving self-talk to ourselves. It allows students to pen down how they are feeling, which can have a huge impact on their mind.
Experience Sharing: Making students share their experiences in front of the class is one of the building blocks in carving their social skills. It builds their confidence and makes them learn from others’ experience.
Appreciation Session: You can introduce a daily appreciation session where students can take time to appreciate things or people. This small exercise can teach students gratitude and help them control their emotions in a positive way.
Emotional Breaks: Emotional breaks are a great way of letting students know that their emotions are getting socially acknowledged and that it’s okay to take a break. This helps students deal with anxiety and have better control over their emotions.
At EuroSchool, we understand the importance of social-emotional learning. We ensure that we include the best practices for students’ social-emotional wellbeing. EuroSchool includes top-notch social-emotional learning activities appropriate for their age, which can help them learn necessary skills to build a bright future.
